


Warped

by Grimmy88



Category: Left 4 Dead 2, Nellis - Fandom, Nick and Ellis - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Character Death, M/M, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-02 16:58:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grimmy88/pseuds/Grimmy88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is an old Nellis story that was originally posted to deviantart. It dates back to 2010, remains unedited, so any mistakes are my own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

            Ellis had been a virgin the first time Nick took him. It hadn’t been like he was waiting for anyone. He’d had plenty of chances in the backseats of cars and the dusty floors of tents. He just never took advantage of them because none of those girls had ever meant anything to him. That thought enough had brought him to the orgasm the other man had been attempting to pound out of him.

            That thought – not that he was queer – but that maybe Nick meant something to him had swelled his chest with heat and infused his body with arousal and it was enough to put the pain of having his ass split practically open aside and allow his seed to spill.

            The conman had known he was a virgin when it came to other men. They both knew that much; knew it because when he approached the older man and slowly slid the brown matted, white material off his shoulders he hadn’t reacted for two full minutes, not until Ellis’ lips were working at the panes and hairs of his by-then-bare chest.

            But when he asked afterwards and Ellis admitted that Nick was his first in any sense the older man grew very silent. The southerner supposed things had grown awkward, but he had never really had a handle on the comfort level of other people. Maybe because the people he was used to were never like Nick.

            The people he was used to never fell silent, never stopped talking, and never told him to shut up even though they had looked amused. And yeah, Ellis hated how mean Nick was, and he _was_ mean but he felt like it was more than a fair trade for when Nick was nice.

            And so even when his new lover had grown silent and stiff, Ellis had just drawn his hand up over the sprinkled hair on his stomach and circled his fingers around to feel the muscle underneath. And then he leaned his head down from where it had been supported on the other’s shoulder and kissed lightly, letting his lips just linger there.

            Nick’s hand had found his head and then his voice his ears as it murmured through the dark about how appealing the hick’s lips were.

 

            As far as Ellis knew, up until they were on Virgil’s boat, Rochelle and Coach didn’t know about his and Nick’s relationship. The older man said it was because he made sure they were very careful. But the southerner didn’t see how dragging him to an opposite room once inside a safe area, saving his health kits for Ellis, and _only_ accompanying him when they had to split up into two’s was careful. Not that he really cared. They could know if they wanted. He’d long since dropped his modesty, hell even his religion and teaching, long before pulling that suit jacket from Nick’s shoulders.

            Because sure, he believed in God, yeah. But God believed in him too (or else he wouldn’t have been able to kick so much zombie ass).

            Ellis had remained on deck one of the nights they drifted slowly down the river. He was sitting, his arm pressed to the low railing of the fishing boat, head turned, eyes on the dark, not able to focus on anything concrete on the shore.

            Nick came to find him then. He sat behind Ellis and didn’t move (as he had all the times before) when the younger man scooted back against him and rested his head on his shoulder. It was uncomfortable for the both of them, but they waited long moments in that position.

            “You okay?”

            It always pleased Ellis when Nick spoke first. So far it had only happened three times. “Yeah. Just thinkin’. Why ain’t y’asleep?”

            “Didn’t know where you were. And Coach is snoring.”

            The second comment did nothing to ease the amazing pain of his belly flopping. “I don’t go too far.”

            “I know.” Nick took off Ellis’ hat then and put his hand in the brown curls.

            “Maybe in ten, fifteen years, everythin’ll be clean? Maybe we’ll come back an’ I can show you what Savannah was really like. An’ maybe my house’ll still be there. Maybe Keith’ll be there. Though he ain’t gonna like you too much, Nick.”

            “Why? Because I stole his boyfriend?”

            Ellis didn’t like blushing like some girl so he was glad for the dark. “No.” He had stopped defending himself from the accusations, from both Nick and Rochelle. Ro’s was a gentle, sisterly teasing, he knew. Nick’s was like a snake’s bite. It had hurt before he realized it was so laced with venom because of jealousy. And then he had laughed because Nick had green eyes.

            “’Cause you don’t like my stories. And ‘cause yer mean to me so ya’ll be mean to him.”

            “Yeah, I will be.”

            Ellis drew Nick’s other arm around him and played with the ring on his finger.

            “I’m not mean to you.”

            “Yeah, you are.” They shifted then, the position cramping their already sore bodies. Ellis hadn’t let go of his hand as they lay, facing each other.

            “Well, you have to admit you say some stupid-ass shit sometimes, kid.”

            Ellis took his ring off, tried to fit it on one of his fingers, and it semi-worked on his middle. He flipped the older man off, lips curved. Nick just rolled his eyes.

            “An’ you can show me where you lived.”

            “What makes you think I’ll let you come with me?”

            The redneck took the ring off but didn’t return it. He slipped the smooth metal between his fingers. He wondered if Nick knew how hard and biting his voice could get. He wondered if he knew how hurtful his words were because he certainly didn’t think about the repercussions before saying them. He wondered if he cared.

            “…Because.” Ellis was used to Nick, and usually had some response that led the northerner to silence. He had said it was because sometimes the boy’s responses were so _naïve_ and other times just plain, sweet truthfulness that he’d never considered before. But, the hick didn’t have one tonight.

            But Nick did. “You’re like a goddamn puppy.” But his wasn’t so sweet. “I paid attention to you and now you’re sticking by my side? Until when?”

            “Probably ‘til we die.”

            “Ellis,” Nick sighed and sat up, annoyance and confusion twisting together in his voice. “You have friends and family waiting for you, right? What about them? Don’t you have loyalty to them?”

            “Sure,” the younger man nodded. “Sure, I do. And that’s what phones are fer.”

            “You have got to be kidding me.”

            Ellis sat up as well. “What’s this ring fer?”

            Nick shrugged. “They’re not _for_ anything. I just wear them.”

            “Oh, ‘cause mama said rings mean somethin’.”

            “It’s not a wedding ring, if that’s what you’re asking.”

            “Nah, I figured… you’da pawned that thing.” He slipped the ring back on his finger again.

            “You figured right.” Nick’s eyes were on the band.

            “You want somethin’a mine?” Ellis looked up from it and then started rummaging through his pockets. “Dunno if I have somethin’ important in here er not.”

            “What are you _talking_ about?”

            “Like them promise rings… er somethin’.”

            “Stop treating this like—…”

            “Well, Iunno how else to treat it!” Ellis interrupted, louder than he meant to. His face was hot and his hands were shaking inside his pockets. He turned his back on the older man. Somehow he’d walked into yet another stupid conversation made worse by his stupid actions. Nick didn’t think like he did.

            He kept moving his hands, trying to give himself something to focus on in the long moments of silence between them.

            Nick moved closer then and put his hands on Ellis’ shoulders. “Look…I’m not thinking into the future like you, kid. I’m thinking one day to the next, okay? I can’t answer any of this, and I’m not going to place bets on it because my bet is we won’t make it through anyway.”

            “Thinkin’a days and its moments, not tomorrow,” Ellis murmured. “What about moments when it’s just you an’ me? What about them? Do you even _thinka_ them?”

            “More than I should,” Nick admitted lowly. He let his hands fall away. “Especially when you do enough thinking about it for the both of us.”

            Ellis looked at him, pleased and sated with the admission. He withdrew his hands and scooted towards the other, laying his head on his shoulder again. “Nothin’ in my pocket anyhow.”

            Nick’s hand found his face, his fingers his chin, and he lifted until their faces were equal. And then he pushed their mouths together.

            Their first kiss. Ellis’ first kiss with a man, and Nick’s too he discovered later, though at the time it didn’t matter at all. It didn’t cross his mind at all.

            And Nick never took the ring back.

 

            “Wanna hear a prediction?”

            “No,” the other three members echoed in unison.

            “There’s not gonna be any gas; watch.” Nick looked his handgun over.

            Ellis picked up the ax lying by his feet.

            “Now we’re jinxed,” Rochelle joked, her own gun ready as they followed Coach through the fast food restaurant in front of them.

 

            “Ho-lee-shit, Nick!” Ellis whispered, awed. “You ever seen so many witches?” He was kneeling next to the conman’s legs, surveying three witches, heads in their hands, circling just as their cries circled in the air.

            “No.”

            “Yeah, me neither!” He slid his hand down the butt of his rifle quickly. It was slick from the rain and several droplets flew off with the motion.

            “Let’s try and get around. Quietly. Two by two.” Coach took Rochelle’s arm to pull her along – probably so that she wouldn’t run off and be on her own or outrun the older and much larger man.

            The witch closest to them halted, her body stiffened. However, she didn’t look up from between her long-nailed hands. But she growled lowly into them. Coach and Rochelle slowed to a stop as they made it under a bridge a little bit further on.

            Nick took Ellis’ bicep in his arm and held the boy to the right so that he was between the younger male and the infected female. Ellis kept his mouth shut because they were already sloshing past her.

            When they rejoined the other two Ellis let out a laugh. And then Nick and Coach chuckled with him. Rochelle just smiled and then shook her head.

            And then Nick spewed out the loudest cuss Ellis had ever heard as a smoker’s tongue wrapped around his white waist and pulled. And he went down hard into the water and then slid along the slick mud and grass fast.

            “Nick!”

            But it was too late to chop at the appendage. The smoker was situated high behind the three witches. And Nick ended up at the feet of the one in the middle. And she looked down at him, her eyes blazing. The other two howled.

            “HOLY SHIT!”

            And Ellis did the only thing he could think of, he shot the one in the middle in the chest with his rifle.

            Her attention redirected and she literally shot over Nick, one foot using his stomach as a spring board, arms outstretched as she screamed for Ellis. He let out his own yell and turned and ran.

            Rochelle, meanwhile, had taken care of the smoker and Nick was struggling with the slippery tongue. Unfortunately by the time he had managed to get it off the remaining two threats had thrown their own hands high and let their screams bounce off the cold walls of the mill.

            Nick ran in Ellis’ direction. “THESE BITCHES ARE CHASIN’ ME!”

            Coach and Rochelle took off after the two pale monsters, guns blazing. Rochelle’s AK-47 ripped apart the skin of the witch on the left so badly that her whole back and legs stained red. When she began unloading her last clip in the bitch’s head, that’s when she fell. And so Rochelle ran after the other, with Coach trying to unload shotgun shells without hitting Nick, helplessly.

            Ellis’ ax was laying nearby, dropped in the boy’s haste and the distant yells and whoops of the hick meant he was still running, to Nick’s relief. But panic resumed its control of his brain and somehow he came back to himself in time to scoop up the weapon and turn, finding himself almost in the witch’s arms. He swung his arms and embedded the ax in her skull. Her mouth remained fixed open and for a moment she stood there. And then it was like all the weight was too much for her anorexic legs to handle and she crumpled down, her skull oozing blood and bone chunks.

            Nick used his shoe against her shoulder to pry the blade from her head and then peered up. There was a broken bridge above their heads that lead into the building he assumed they’d have to move through. And Ellis was yelling somewhere inside.

            “Ellis!”

            His boots thumped along above them. “THIS BITCH IS SLOW AS SHIT!” He was laughing and shooting.

            The redneck had known he couldn’t get all three of them, so he had taken the one with the most direct threat to Nick, relying heavily on his other two teammates to make sure the conman would survive. He had led the witch (his feet jumping from dry patches) through puddles and bushes, anything to slow her down. His trail had eventually lead to the building and after running around the bottom floor once he ascended the stairs, two at a time, until he ran around the second floor.

            At Nick’s voice, unhurt and worried, coming from where the nearby bridge poked out he had no other thought than to run to it. His boots slipped a little on the metal and he slid to the edge, turning to fire rifle shots at his undead follower.

            Nick stood directly below him, his gun aimed up. Ellis turned as the witch cried out, distracted by a stray bullet on her cheek, and hopped across to the trailer sitting nearby. His feet slid the moment he landed and he fell forward onto his stomach. The witch failed to make the jump, however, and she fell straight down, screaming.

            And Coach took that moment to get close, aim his shotgun, and blow her head clean off. The remainder of her body splashed down into the puddle near Nick’s legs.

            Ellis rolled onto his back and laughed.

            “Damn, Coach.”

            “Damn yourself, son!” Coach clapped Nick on the shoulder. “Who’da thought you’d be brave enough to turn and face a witch with the way you were runnin’.”

            “Ha. Ha. Ha.” Nick pushed his arm off.

            Ellis sat up to watch the exchange because Coach was trying to pull the conman into an awkward one-armed hug. Nick might have thought it was to annoy him but Ellis knew how close the northerner had been to death. _And how much we woulda missed him._ And he knew it was the only way Coach knew to express himself.

            “Would you knock it off already?!”

            Rochelle giggled besides him, her first sound since the startling of the witches.

            Ellis’ stomach flopped again when Nick actually smiled. Sure, it had accompanied his threat to repeat his triumphant kill on Coach’s own skull, but it was playful and there.

            And then he screamed, a literal scream, something he hadn’t done in the entire apocalypse because in the time it took him to blink a solid weight was crashing and crushing into his chest. Muscular thighs straddled him, securing him in place as the Hunter screamed his own response, their faces close. And Ellis gawked at the gored holes that were once his eyes and wondered how or why Hunters lost them.

            Ellis was quick enough to grab the wrists that connected to the very deadly fingertips beyond. He had seen both Nick and Rochelle get torn up by them and it was not an experience he wanted to have, especially after such an awesome kill: to be taken out by some zombie in a sweatshirt and duct tape?

            Unfortunately he had no such protection for the rest of his body and nowhere to squirm to without releasing his hold on the wrists and therefore opening himself up for attack. And so the Hunter closed the distance, letting its teeth rip through shirt and flesh, right into the hick’s shoulder.

            Ellis screamed again.

            And then so did the bullets as they whizzed above him and throughout the Hunter’s body. When its mouth and body relaxed the redneck shoved it off. His shirt had turned orange.

            He took his rifle and slipped off the edge of the trailer, slopping down to the mud and water below.

            Nick was at his side instantly, hands on his neck, lifting his head. “Jesus, Ellis. You okay? Did he get you?”

            “Nah, nah. He just bit me. I’m alright, still in one piece.” And he was fine, he realized as he stood. Even though his legs were shaking and his heart was racing, he was fine. He had been startled, that was all. But a little bite was much better than a chest full of inch-deep razor blade cuts.

            Nick took his arm then. “Ro, you got any gauze in that health kit?”

            “Yeah,” she said and withdrew it from her back. “Let’s get him into the trailer.”

 

            “I ain’t ever seen a real cane field afore. I mean, sure in movies, but this is real life. It’s cool seein’ new things.”

            Nick reloaded his gun. “Hear that? Sounds like my ex wife. Not gonna be so cool when we run into her skinny ass in there.”

            Ellis smiled at him, appreciating the joke because somehow it meant they were close. Somehow. He nudged him with his elbow. “I’ll handle it.”

            “Oh, really?” Nick stood straight and stepped closer to the boy. “Because I think I was the one chopping through the other bitch’s skull with that ax.”

            “I know. I’m kinda pissed I missed it,” Ellis whispered, frowning.

            The older man laughed and turned back towards the field.

            Coach came out of the shack nearby, holding an adrenaline shot out to Ellis who took it obediently.

            “I think we can follow this pipe for a little bit,” Rochelle commented, snapping out of the stare she had given to the metal above them.

            “Well, let’s go!” Their youngest heaved his boot forward for a large step until he was yanked back by both Nick and Coach.

            “Not with that ax.”

            “Or that shoulder,” Nick added.

            “Aw, come on,” Ellis almost pleaded. “’Sides the rifle ain’t gonna do me no good in all _that_. An’ I’m _fine_.”

            “No,” Coach said and then climbed onto the pipe to lead the way. Rochelle followed and then Ellis grumbled and clambered onto it with Nick close to his back.

            They all fell silent as they were forced into the foliage, the rustling of the crops around them the only indications of their presence. Ellis looked off to their left where the witch was walking in the opposite direction. Her breath hitched once as a sugar cane leaf smacked Nick in the face and he hissed.

            “Careful, Nick,” Ellis whispered as they moved on. “I think she smelled the other one on ya. She knows yer a witch killin’ machine.”

            Nick shoved him but not before Ellis caught yet another smile.

 

            “Everyone gassed up?” Coach turned to the other men, knowing full well Rochelle had been the first of the foursome in the safe room.

            Nick was helping Ellis tighten the straps across the front of his chest without them having to brush and aggravate the wound on his shoulder. When, after a final tug, the older man was satisfied he pulled the younger up. “We’re good.”

            “Alright, take everything we can.” Coach slipped an extra pistol into the back of his pants as if to make the order clear.

            The conman searched the shelves behind them and slipped a bottle of pills into the pocket of his suit, and then another into the opposite one. When thunder cracked over their heads he glanced up. “Umbrella would’ve been nice.”

            Ellis put his hand into Nick’s pocket and took out one of the bottles, opened it and popped two of the pills into his mouth before returning it. “Afraid of a little water, Nick?” He looked up into his teammate’s eyes after a few moments of checking his gun over.

            They were so narrow the southerner thought all he saw was green.

            “You okay?”

            “Yeah, thinking about water. A shower, actually,” Nick responded, voice husky, eyes tracing over Ellis, bottom to top.

            Ellis’ mind blanked and his body tensed, and the gun in his hand went off. A chunk of plaster flew from the wall and thudded soundly against Coach’s head.

 

            Ellis was lagging behind. It wasn’t because he was in pain, not completely because anyway. It was the heavy gas on his back and the heavy rain on his shoulders and the rising water against his steps and the straps against his chest that no matter how many times he readjusted still managed to bite into his wound. It was all of those things but he kept his mouth shut.

            Unfortunately shutting his mouth drew the attention of the others anyway.

            “Ellis, you okay, boy?” Coach stopped against the brick wall and looked back.

            “Yeah,” Ellis said quickly. “M’fine. Why?”

            “Because we haven’t heard a Keith story, or a ‘hey, Nick! Look at that!’ for about forty minutes,” Rochelle teased.

            He smiled at her and kicked some of the water. “I didn’t figure y’all could hear me over the storm.”

            As if on cue the wind raged and howled in response causing the team to crowd together against the wall. Ellis kneeled down in the slosh, not really caring that his jumpsuit was getting wet because it shifted the uncomfortable weight from his feet and allowed him to get his bearings. Nick stood behind him. “Nobody wander off!”

            Only a few infected found them through the whipping rain and when it died down again Coach and Rochelle began to walk again. Ellis stood to follow them and fell the next. He clattered back against the brick wall and lost his balance, planting back into a wet seat of mud.

            “Jesus! Overalls, you okay?” Nick took his uninjured arm in his hands and helped him stand.

            “Yeah,” Ellis mumbled and repositioned the straps around his chest.

            “We’re almost there, you got it?”

            The redneck lifted his eyes because he could tell Nick a simple no and the other man would take the gasoline from his back. “I got it.” The conman didn’t need to be weighed down anymore than he already was. “Just a little dizzy. But like you said, it ain’t much further. I got it.”

 

            When they got to the next safe room, though, Ellis happily let Nick take the gasoline from his back. The moment the weight was gone he draped his torso across the counter in front of him, pressing his cheek against the cool marble top.

            Rochelle moved to his side. “Sweetie, let me see your shoulder, okay?”

            “Nah, Ro, s’fine,” he smiled at her, his cheek puffed from the pressure. “I’m just hungry, not hurtin’.”

            She nodded and stepped away and he felt guilty because lying wasn’t one of the things he had meant to learn from Nick.

            Apparently the skill was defective because when Nick leaned close and asked him into one of the bedrooms he followed obediently and inside they slipped his arm from its sleeve.

            “Hold this.” A flashlight pressed against Ellis’ hand and he did as he was told, shining the light onto the gauzed over wound. He chewed the inside of his cheek as the covering was slowly peeled back.

            The bite was purple and blue and ugly. While the holes had stopped bleeding they still shone as if they hadn’t. The entire area was swollen and the skin itself had taken a nasty yellow color and Ellis didn’t like the look of it. He tried to remember what some of Keith’s wounds had looked like.

            “Well, that can’t feel good.” Nick gave him a pressed, thin-lipped smile.

            “It don’t, but don’t be sayin’ nothin’ to them.”

            His teammate shook his head in agreement, eyes redirected back to the marks. Nick pressed his fingers against the puffed skin. Ellis caught him by the wrist.

            “I want to make sure nothing comes out.”

            “That’s nasty.”

            “Nasty? With all the scratches you must’ve gotten as a kid?” Nick pulled the clamped, wet fingers from his wrist. And then he pressed his against the yellow again. And the darkest, slowest blood Ellis had ever seen pressed forward from the punctures.

            He looked up but Nick didn’t. Instead he wiped the blood away with his palm and lifted the gauze to reapply it. Then he stepped back and smeared Ellis’ blood on the side of his pant leg. “How you feeling?”

            “Like something bit my shoulder!”

            “I’m serious, kid.”

            “Hungry and sore, just like ya’ll.”

            “But not weird?”

            “I feel like yer askin’ some stupid questions fer bein’ ina zombie apocalypse.” Ellis placed his hands on his hips and then felt stupid with the pose because his shirt was still bunched up and half his body exposed.

            Nick’s sighed a little. “I’m just making sure, hick.” And then he lowered his eyes to Ellis’s chest. “I’m just making sure,” he repeated, stepping close, placing his hands on the naked flanks, “that you’re alright.”

            Ellis leaned in.

            “You _feel_ alright.”

            “Just _alright_?” The southerner tried to sound offended because he figured it was something Nick would do.

            And it worked because the next moment their lips were smiling against each other’s. Ellis raised the hand he could and gripped onto the suit jacket as he opened his mouth, letting the other man’s tongue slip in, wet and slick against his lips. He couldn’t help but feel pleased with himself as warm arms circled about him.

            “Boys?” They both turned to Rochelle who had one eyebrow arched as high as it could possibly go, or at least it seemed that way. “Is now the best time?”

            Ellis stepped back, face hot again, and tried to pull his shirt down. The fabric snapped a few times in warning as it stretched. Nick calmly, but with a shit-grin on his face, helped his younger guide the weak arm back through his shirt.

            And Ellis blurted an, “okay” in the same voice he always used when he was disappointed.

 

            “That sign’s going to attract all sorts of shit, not just Virgil,” Nick told them. He was sorting through a drained ammo stash on one of the restaurant’s flimsy tables with Coach and Rochelle.

            Ellis, having already grabbed his own ammunition, stood away from them. He leant his weight heavily upon the front counter of the decrepit burger joint with his hips, hoping none of his teammates would notice the obvious slant in his stance.

            “And you’re surprised because…?” Rochelle smiled up from the pile at her fellow northerner. “Because it’s about the twelfth time it’s happened to us?”

            “Nobody else thinks that’s weird?” When nobody replied the suit shoulders shrugged and Nick moved to stand behind a cash register.

            Ellis watched their companions head up the ladder to the top of the small building to illuminate the sign and signal their escape. He turned his head back to Nick who was looking the register over very slowly.

            “Not again.”

            “What?” He looked up, feigning innocence.

            “Not again,” Ellis repeated. “I let ya last time. What d’ya even need it for? Money’s gonna be useless, man! We’ll all end up livin’ in teepees and shit! And tradin’ insteada--…”

            “ _Fine_ ,” Nick conceded, obviously not comprehending the redneck’s misplaced guilt over the matter. And Ellis guessed that made sense with the argument he had just brought up. “Why’re you standing like that?”

            Ellis stood up, as straight as he could. “What?”

            “We’ll hold out down here,” Coach’s voice halted Nick’s. “It’ll be easier if they crawl through all these small openings.”

            Rochelle moved between the two younger men and they let her. If she hadn’t moved on her own Ellis would have taken her arm and made her anyhow. Because she needed the protection. And it wasn’t because of what his mama taught him or even because she was a woman at all, it was because she simply was the physically smallest and most tired of them all. Because Ellis wasn’t about to let anyone know how tired he was.

            He wondered if anyone heard his labored breath but he realized it didn’t matter because as the storm began to pick up and whip about them the first of the infected began to surge through the missing windows and doorway.

            Coach’s shotgun rang out first and it felt like the OK to Ellis who broke out firing with his own weapon.

            Nick had told him that it always seemed like hours before the numbers of their attackers ceased being a threat and instead became a morbid sort of carpet made of rotting flesh. To Ellis, however, it all went by so fast. Sometimes he felt like the infected were so quick that he had to kill them even quicker and so he was having no more fun at all in the apocalypse. And it distracted him enough that he lost count on his headshots.

            Not to mention the blinding fog of the storm didn’t help.

            In this instance, the redneck just kept thinking that there were way too many pale fists swinging at them for such a small town. But, maybe they remembered hamburgers and that’s why they came so far and in so many. He couldn’t blame them, really.

            When the last undead head split apart and its body joined the others in the now blood-brown water  Ellis reloaded his gun quickly. Maybe they were lucky this time.

            “Should we go and see if Virgil’s here?” Rochelle asked loudly.

            A foghorn blast from the boat answered her. And each survivor’s shoulders slumped because even the hick knew how stupid a decision that had been.

            “Back to the docks!” Nick made sure the younger members were between him and Coach.

            Ellis could barely make out the purple of their oldest member’s jersey through the haze of the storm. “When’s this storm gonna die down again?!”

            “This _is_ died down,” Rochelle responded and glanced over at him. He couldn’t make out her expression.

            Gunfire broke out behind the two and Ellis stopped for Nick. He wasn’t halted for long because as soon as he saw the pipe bomb leave the formerly ringed hand he was bolting for the dock. He didn’t know whether the boat was there or not.

            Apparently it was the latter because Coach stopped him with a firm hand to the chest. “There he is! Pullin’ up now!”

            A different, thicker roar broke out among the many thinner ones.

            “Ah, shit!” There were frantic, sloshing feet. “Man up for a sec; we’ve got a tank!”

            “Left! LEFT!” Rochelle screeched, hurting Ellis’ ears. She moved away from the dock.

            But Coach wasn’t moving from his peripheral vision and so he didn’t move either. The Tank’s fists sank low into the wet earth as it pushed itself along. While it was slowed Ellis knew if he and Coach didn’t move soon they’d get a hundred pounds of hard fist in their faces.

            So he turned to the other man and reached out. And then he froze. It wasn’t Coach.

            It was a tree.

            The Tank swung at him. It missed because Ellis had already lost his footing. He was in the mud again, only this time two large fists were coming for him, not two caring arms.

            Or that he saw, because what he heard was the Tank stumbling and grunting in pain. It turned from him but Ellis didn’t know why because he hadn’t heard gunfire. He was forced to peer through the gray-blackening air to just barely make out the red blade implanted at the base of the Tank’s neck.

            One of its arms shot out weakly before the massive weight of his chest caused the monster to tumble forward in a loud slap of water.

            Weak as it was, it was enough. Nick yelled out and it was so blaringly loud that Ellis winced. He winced again at the sound of a body hitting water, deep water. A body hitting the _river_. Nick’s body.

            Virgil’s boat sloshed up to the dock. Infected feet sloshed in the muddy water. He still hadn’t stood.

            Coach was yanking him up roughly, strong hands pulling at his weaker arm. He tried to pull against it because he wanted to go to the riverside and yell for Nick. But Coach obviously knew which arm he had taken because he _twisted_ his grip and Ellis went slack and figured he’d let the other man pull him anywhere as long as he’d eventually let go.

            And he was set free once he was on the hard deck of the boat. He could hear the wood groaning against the wind and water. They were pulling away from the dock.

            He scrambled to the side and screamed. “NICK!”

            Rochelle joined him, her voice screeching again. He didn’t remember her ever _screaming_ in such a pitch before. Ellis tried to reach out his hand to quiet her but his grasp fell on Coach’s forearm instead. He clamped his hands around it.

            “Coach, don’t let Virgil pull away! Tell him not to pull away!”

            “Ellis, last time we got hit by one-a those things I was knocked unconscious.” His voice and accent lowered. “An’ I got meat on me, boy, an’ I still blacked out.”

            Rochelle was at his other side then. “Ellis…”

            He twitched his head to the left (as Ro had labeled the action later). “Didjya hear that?”

            “Hear what?”

            He put both his hands on the side of the fishing vessel again. “THAT! Tell Virgil to go left!” When nobody responded or moved he whipped around to face them. “COACH!” It wasn’t a plea or even a demand. It was a growl.

            Coach was so startled that Rochelle was the one who followed the command. And the next moment they were turning, the only sound the storm and the water, and to Ellis’ ears, Nick’s voice.

            A few moments passed before Ellis heard another yell, closer this time. It took several more moments before Coach stepped to his side and murmured his disbelief. “Holy hell. There he is.”

            “Where?!” Ellis looked up and tried to follow the direction of Coach’s finger. He waited another moment before he could make out the shoulders of Nick’s suit sticking out of the water, clinging to some object he couldn’t identify. He didn’t know how Coach spotted him so quickly.

            “Nick!”

            He yelled again and this time it was clearer, “THROW ME SOMETHING, ALREADY!”

            “Get one-a them--…” He looked up to the other man who already had the orange floatation device in his hands. “Ya think ya can throw it that far?”

            Coach gave him an almost annoyed look.

            “Yeah… stupid question.” He felt even more stupid when it left the old footballer’s hands and bonked against the top of Nick’s head.

            They reeled the gambler in and as the life saver bumped against the side of the boat Ellis could finally make out his teammate’s face. He looked like a wet animal: miserable and tired. He bobbed limply, moving completely with the water’s motion.

            Nick glared. “You did that on purpose.”

            Ellis reached in with his good arm and took one of Nick’s, even though all three knew it was Coach who was actually doing the work of heaving their friend’s weight onto the deck of the boat. He just wanted to feel that Nick was solid and okay. And even though he did feel it, he still didn’t let go of the hand. And Nick didn’t make him.

 

            “You heard me _over_ the storm?”

            Ellis nodded and dug around the cabinets in the bunkroom for another towel. The one Nick had wrapped around his waist was already soaked, but it was better than his drenched clothing that was currently hung to dry off the edge of Ellis’ top bunk.

            “That doesn’t make sense. I couldn’t even hear the boat. I thought you guys left.”

            “Coach thought you got knocked out,” Ellis responded, throat tight. He sat on the bed, wringing the dry towel in his hands. “He didn’t _want_ to leave you.”

            “Relax.” Nick took the towel from his hands and placed it on his head so he could mop at the wet strands. “I’m on the boat. Nobody left anybody. That’s not what I meant anyway.”

            Ellis turned his head to watch the man beside him. He watched him pat his hair, he watched him pull the towel down so it rested on bare shoulders, he watched the two cotton ends as they came to rest against his wet torso, and he watched his own hands reach out.

            Nick caught them, but he had a smirk on his face so Ellis moved close. “It’s still raining out there, kid. Ro and Coach are gonna walk in. Now, I know I’m all but irresistible right now…”

            “Aw, shaddup.” Ellis slipped his hands from the lax grip and moved the towel from the shoulders in front of him.

            With the towel gone he redirected his attention into getting his own wet shirt off. Nick helped him, as he had before, slowly before tossing it aside. Ellis reached down to the knotted arms of his jumpsuit but stopped when he felt Nick’s hands on his collarbone.

            They moved to either side of his wound but he stopped them before they could peel back the bandaging. “I dun wanna look at it right now.”

            “Ellis.” Chiding.

            He looked up at the tone but couldn’t take it seriously because of Nick’s hair. It wasn’t slicked back like usual, not that it was crazy like his must’ve been under his hat, but with the strands disheveled and facing opposite ways he didn’t look like he had more than ten years on the younger man.

            “Ro ain’t gonna let Coach come down here afore she sees one of us leave,” Ellis said softly.

            “Then I’m sold,” Nick said simply and pulled at the knot of the blue jumpsuit.

            Any other time, when they had more of it anyway, Ellis would’ve liked to try and have the older man play aloof just so he could coax him. Nick had done it to him in a one-roomed safe house. It was another first time for the southerner: his first blowjob hidden behind stacked boxes with two sleeping friends within earshot.

            Ellis laid back on the firm bed and lifted his hips so they could get jumpsuit and boxers down easily. They joined his shirt on the floor.

            Nick eased down on one arm next to him and let his eyes move over the bare skin before him. Their first time this had embarrassed the hick (and Nick’s comment about his redneck tan-lines hadn’t helped) but as his lover became visibly hard underneath the towel Ellis couldn’t even remember what shame was.

            Their lips met then and then their bodies as Nick shifted atop the boy. He worked his hand up from between smooth pectorals, a strained neck and slack jaw to rake the hat from Ellis’ head and slip his fingers into the slightly-curled hair all in one motion.

            Ellis hiked his leg up and Nick’s thigh slipped between his own. With his foot planted firmly on the bed he used the leverage to roll his hips and rub his hardening length against the leg.

            He sighed softly against Nick’s mouth and opened his further, letting the slick tongue flicking at his bottom lip inside. It continued the flicking motion against his own tongue and Ellis sucked in a breath. He wrapped his arm around the back of Nick’s neck to force him closer even though he knew they couldn’t get any closer than they were. Still, he pressed close, sucked hard, and smoothed his other hand over the hunched back above him.

            Nick broke the kiss then to breathe hushed, cool words over his lover’s now plump and wet mouth. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

            “Not anymore it don’t,” Ellis whispered back, just as pleased.

            Nick watched him for a moment and then ran his fingernails against the scalp under his touch. Then he pressed his palm firmly against the hick’s forehead, holding him down to the bed before crushing their mouth’s back together.

            Ellis’ breath hitched when his bottom lip was sucked into the hot mouth working over his and somewhere in his mind he didn’t mind if they just kept on like this without getting to anything else. But Nick didn’t think like him and then there were teeth on his neck, his pulse, his throat, and he was turning his head to get the same attention on the other side.

            A battle-roughened hand forced his leg from its arched position so that Nick could straddle him and move his bites downwards. Somewhere along the way Ellis had closed his eyes, and though all the other times he had enjoyed watching Nick lick along his body, all he wanted to do now was _feel_ that stubble against the dip of his stomach.

            And he did feel it. And then again as Nick’s chin scratched over his lower abs. And then _again_ when Nick changed his position, causing the rough jaw line to scrape against the hick’s hipbone.

            Above him there was a chuckle and Ellis realized his face was hot again and his breath was fast and his body was shaking.

            Nick’s touch fell away and for several moments Ellis lay there, silent.

            “We don’t have anything,” he blurted suddenly. He may have only slept with Nick once, but plenty of the other stuff they had done had made him very much aware of the conman’s teasing tactics. And tonight they didn’t have time. And he just wanted Nick. _Solid and okay._

            “Fuck.” Nick’s weight disappeared from the bed. He listened as his teammate searched the room, shuffling blankets and sliding drawers (and losing his towel in a wet slap against the floor in the process) until it went quiet. “Nothing here, kid.”

            He reached out and took Nick’s elbow in his hand to try and draw his warm body back against his own. “It’s okay.”

            “You’re a goddamn retard sometimes. _That_ is not okay and it’s not gonna feel okay.”

            “But, I wanna.”

            “What’re you, five?”

            “Accordin’ta you.” Ellis succeeded in getting Nick back at his side and he took his turn in pressing kisses against the stubble underneath the conman’s chin.

            “I’ll do something else for you,” Nick said, voice throaty. Ellis liked when the northern lowered his voice. It was rugged and deep and emotional and something rare. It was like when people got all teary-eyed when somebody sang beautifully because they couldn’t possibly describe it with words. Well the very physical rush of blood to his stomach and loins described it well enough for the both of them.

            And it helped to reaffirm his former decision. “I dun want somethin’ else.” He pushed the bridge of his nose against the curve of Nick’s jaw.

            “Jesus Christ,” Nick said, but he wasn’t the least bit annoyed. But he couldn’t be because Ellis figured it just wasn’t his partner’s nature to turn down sex. It bothered him a little, and he felt the evidence of it in his chest as clearly as he felt his blood pumping and his stomach floating.

            When a hand smoothed over his hip, down the side of his thigh, and then back up again to his ass cheek Ellis hefted his leg over Nick’s hip and knew he’d won. When their cocks touched and both their hips proceeded to roll to keep the lengths pressing and rubbing he compared it to winning the lottery.

            Nick tried to shift their weight so as to roll Ellis atop him. The redneck didn’t move. Instead he pressed his back against the now-warm bed firmly and waited there patiently, eyes still closed.

            The older man moved into position and muttered another profanity. “You know, it’d probably be easier if you moved onto your stomach.”

            The younger man shook his head. “Like this.”

            “Again. There. Is. No. Lube.”

            Ellis moved, curling his back against the bed as he moved his legs up and slipped his ankles to rest in the dips of Nick’s shoulders.

            “…You owe me for this.”

            “Owe you?” Ellis had to open his eyes then and he had to wait an unusual amount of time before they cleared. But when they did he couldn’t help but smile because Nick’s face wasn’t scrunched or patronizing like usual. His lips were open and one corner was upturned just slightly.

            “I ain’t never heard of someone owin’ another for sex… well, unless they’re a prostitute, but you ain’t a prostitute, are ya, Nick?”

            Nick frowned and leaned his weight forward, taking the hick’s knees with him.

            “Ow! Ow, I don’t bend that far!”

            They shifted back and Ellis spread his legs so that the body above his own could settle between them. Nick leaned down to give him a chaste kiss and then another, harder one when Ellis raised his neck for a second.

            He sat up then and, keeping the lithe thighs around his waist, spat into his hand. He began to stroke himself and then alternated with spitting into his hand. It wasn’t the most romantic thing Ellis had ever experienced but he wasn’t disgusted by it. He tuned the spitting noise out and just watched the flick of Nick’s hand.

            When a wet finger pressed against his entrance he let his eyes shut again. And he listened to Nick’s breathing and felt his touch push inside.

            The head of his lover’s cock was next. The preparation barely helped and Nick’s saliva just wasn’t enough. Before Ellis had been surprised with how easily a cock had been able to fit inside his ass. That wasn’t to say he hadn’t been sore the next day. But now, he’d be lucky if he could walk.

            And it wasn’t so much the pain, but just the fact that it was his second time and Nick was simply too big and Ellis too tight. But he didn’t say anything, just wrapped his legs around the other man’s trim waist and squeezed them.

            It hurt and it felt like Nick’s cock was digging at his insides but he managed to keep it from being displayed on his face. However, he couldn’t keep it from his arousal and though he kept his eyes shut he could feel his cock soften against his own stomach.

            “I told you,” Nick sounded disappointed.

            “That’s ‘cause,” Ellis said softly and reached out to take his lover’s wrist, “you ain’t touchin’ me.” He placed it around his cock. “An’ you ain’t sayin’ nothin’.”

            “You want me to talk dirty? I’ve created a monster.”

            “N-naw,” he cursed himself for the stammer. “I didn’t say _dirty_.”

            “No?” His voice was low again. “You don’t want me to tell you how tight you are?” Nick pushed as he spoke and despite the pain all Ellis felt were his fingers and all he heard were the words.

            He turned his head to the side and didn’t answer.

            “And I figured you would be,” he continued in soft tones. “But, damn, Ellis.” His cock was in to the hilt then and he froze and when he spoke his words left his mouth in a shuttering breath. “You’re the tightest I’ve ever felt.”

            “Should I be prouda that?” He hadn’t meant to say it. He didn’t _want_ to say it, not now. There’d be time for him to be jealous another time.

            “Yes, you should.” Nick hunched down to slip his tongue over the younger man’s jaw line. He retreated back before Ellis could respond and with a simple roll of his hips a motion sprung up between them.

            The only movement Ellis could really make was the shifting of hips in response to the excited fingers on his length. Otherwise Nick was in complete control. His weight was balanced between his hand, planted firmly on the bed, and his knees. His hips used that balance to shove in and out of the southerner.

            And it was getting easier with every push, slicker even. Ellis tried to remember if Nick had such an amount of pre-cum their first time but all he could remember was the slickness of lotion aiding their tryst. Whatever the reason for Nick’s excitement it came at the perfect time and the boy felt a little foolish for being proud of something like that.

            Their first time Ellis had spilled his seed within seconds of his then-new-lover’s first thrusts. Instead of being teased, however, Nick had simply smirked and continued thrusting into his opening for several more minutes. The first time Nick’s mouth had been on him it took maybe all of a minute before he was arching off the safe room wall with a shudder down his spine. His first handjob from the gambler proved more successful because he had found it much easier to talk through that. However, when Nick’s thumb pressed slowly against and into the slit on the head of his cock he had spurted immediately, and then again a moment after his first orgasm.

            This time Nick was going to spill first.

            Ellis didn’t really moan, but when he felt the cock within him shorten his thrust causing a painful surge of pleasure through his lower regions he couldn’t stop the sound that escaped from his throat. Moan or not, he noticed how Nick faltered in his thrusting for a moment before regaining his rhythm. He felt the way the taller man’s breath puffed harder, irregularly against his chest before it too evened out.

            Ellis swallowed and after sucking in a deep breath of his own shoved his embarrassment and humility away.

            He meant to whisper, but his timing coincided directly with a solid thrust and Nick’s name left his mouth with a sharp rush of air followed directly by a quick breath, as if he could take it back if he sucked in fast enough.

            The hips faltered and then stopped altogether.

            “Jesus, _Ellis_.”

            Nick lifted him then, forcing Ellis to open his eyes wide, the blue moving about as he readjusted to the light and still unfamiliar surroundings. He ducked his head as he moved forward onto Nick’s lap. With a very careful turn they moved so that he now sat, body outside the bars of the bunk beds while Nick remained seated.

            “You’re all red, El.”

            The redneck had already known that. He put his hands on Nick’s shoulders. “I ain’t…”

            “You ain’t never done a lot of things. I know.” His hand moved between them and the fingers rolled softly about the head of the cock there. “That’s why I’m doing them.”

            Ellis rolled his hips against the fingers and froze as the cock within him brushed against that place again. He let his mouth drop slack. Nick sucked at his collarbone but didn’t move his hips. So Ellis moved his again. And again.

            With their weight refocused the bars of the bed began to creak and groan. The bunk itself pushed back against the wall tightly but didn’t move again thereafter.

            “You’re even tighter this way,” Nick murmured against his throat.

            And Ellis responded with another soft half-moan, a hitch of his breath, and a repositioning of his knees onto the edge of the bed. With the new leverage he lifted himself up, once, and then back down, slowly.

            Too slowly for Nick’s liking apparently because firm hands on the less experienced hips sped up the pace and hardened the rhythm. Ellis’ cock bobbed between them, tapping against both their stomachs with the sudden jerks.

            “Nick.” He held out the ‘iiiick’ sound, slowing the name and drawling it in his accent.

            He groaned then, low in his throat and ducked his head down to watch Nick’s face. He groaned because of the position. Because of their movements. Because Nick’s eyes were _so damn green_. But mainly he groaned because his lover was tightening and jerking and panting and spilling inside him first, as if _he_ were the inexperienced twenty-something.

            Ellis had about two seconds to feel any smugness over the fact because the moment Nick’s fist enclosed over his shaft two jerks was all it took before he was spurting between them, lip between his teeth and fingers squeezing.

            When Nick moved to lay back on the bed Ellis followed, ducking his head under the low top-bunk. He shifted so that Nick’s cock slipped out of him. Without the connection he lay against the older man’s side, head on the bump of his shoulder, arms curled against Nick’s ribs. He put one of his legs over the other man’s thigh and didn’t move again.

            “I thought you hated southern accents.”

            “Who says I don’t?”

            “Me an’ the lovin’ we just did.”

            Nick reached one hand up to puff the pillow beneath his head. It was a futile gesture. “You didn’t moan the first time.”

            “I didn’t moan _this_ time,” Ellis said, indignant and stubborn.

            The conman smiled faintly but didn’t respond, too tired for the argument. He just closed his eyes. So Ellis moved closer and reached out to drape his arm over the slightly hair of his chest.

            It was a weird thing to do but Ellis found him touching the hair, just barely, to see if Nick felt it. He didn’t seem to as his eyes never even flickered behind the lids, but the younger kept at it anyway. He moved so he could rest his chin on Nick’s pectoral as he played his hand over the expanse.

            “Nick?”

            “Hm?” He was already half-asleep.

            “How come ya’ll don’t smell bad like I do?”

            “What?”

            “Like yer armpit.”

            “You don’t smell bad, hillbilly. Now shut up.” Nick turned his face to the side and idly reached down to readjust his now sated crotch as he got comfortable. He brought the same hand back up to rest on Ellis’ shoulder.

            Ellis didn’t really mind after what they had just done.

            “…Nick?”

            “Godammit, _what_?”

            “I’m glad you ain’t drowned.”

            Green eyes opened and Nick turned his head so his junior could see that he was smiling. Then his eyes blinked and the smile fell. They blinked again.

            Nick practically shot up into a semi-seated position (any higher would have resulted in a very painful headache). The movement jerked Ellis head and hurt his neck.

            “Ow! What’re you doin’?!”

            The older man raised his hand to point to Ellis’ shoulder and show the other what had startled him but stopped when he caught sight of his own fingers. They were red. Ellis sat up too and wondered how he hadn’t wondered what the strange smell had been. But then again, he’d never had as much sex as Nick.

            They both looked down. Nick’s thighs and genitalia were peppered with blood.

            “Shit, Nick! Are you okay?!”

            “…It’s not mine, you idiot.”

            Ellis stared at him blankly for a moment before he cocked his head and twisted his hips so he could see behind himself. He couldn’t see his opening but the sheets were now spotted as well.

            Nick took up the towel from the floor and forced his lover onto his stomach. “I told you I didn’t want to!”

            “Bull _shit_ you did,” the mechanic responded. “Ya said there was no lube, not that you didn’t want it!”

            “I didn’t,” Nick snarled, “because I knew it something bad was gonna come out of it.”

            Ellis knew it was useless to fight back but he just couldn’t back out of an argument with the other man, especially when said man was blatantly lying. As he was about to respond, however, the cold, moist towel wiped across his opening. He shot up and knocked Nick’s hand away. “WHAT’RE YOU DOIN’?!”

            “Are you kidding me right now? I don’t want you to bleed to death.”

            “You just--...”

            “Ellis, I just fucked your ass; do you really think it matters?”

            But it did matter so he pulled at the towel. For several moments neither grip loosened.

            “Fine; whatever.” Nick let it go and Ellis’ arm jerked back with the material in tow.

            “Don’t look at me.”

            “Gladly.” Nick swung his legs of the side of the bed and made to get up, but didn’t. Instead he lowered his head into his hands.

            The Savannah native reached back to clean himself, face hot and pride shot. When the blood lessened he tossed the towel away, ashamed of it as well.

            Nick just pressed his palms to his brows and kept his head bowed.

            “…Don’t need someone wipin’ me, is all,” Ellis tried. With no response he tried again. “It ain’t hurtin’ none…”

            When the silence started to become so thick it squeezed his heart he crawled over.

            “It ain’t hurtin’ none,” he said again because he didn’t know what else to say. He put his hands on Nick’s shoulders. “I ain’t mad.”

            The northerner reached his arm back and shoved the other away with a firm palm to the stomach. Ellis shifted back onto his haunches and stared at his lover’s back for several seconds.

            He had never met someone so ornery as Nick. One minute the man was laughing, the next fucking and teasing, and then he was holding a gun to your head telling you to shut up. He didn’t _get_ it.

            He wanted to just get his clothes back on and leave. Maybe if he left Nick would cool down. Maybe if he left he’d think of something better to say. Maybe if he left he’d understand how to stop the deep, gripping feeling in the pit of his stomach. And maybe if he left Nick would never touch him again. Maybe he’d never talk to him again.

            So he didn’t leave.

            Instead he slipped his arms around the shoulders this time, gripping his own wrist to lock himself in place. He pressed his cheek to Nick’s ear. “I’m okay. An’ I ain’t mad about it. Juss ‘cause yer lyin’ta me again.”

            “What’d I lie about?” He sounded tired.

            “You weren’t thinkin’ bad about it.”

            “Let go.”

            “Why?”

            “Because I want to lay down.”

            Ellis released his hold and scooted back so he could do so, almost in the exact position from before. When he lifted his arm Ellis settled in against him and then drew up the blanket. “You mad?”

            “No.” Nick closed his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

            When Ellis woke the room was black and quiet. But he could feel Nick beneath him, and he could smell him, like cologne and mint, and so he supposed he didn’t really mind the sounds of Coach and Rochelle’s sleeping breaths on the opposite side of the room.

            What he did mind, however, was the sudden awareness of every single ache in his body. Unfortunately he only became aware once he was in the middle of his cat-like stretch causing him to freeze, his back arch, before willing himself to shudder back into his curled position against his sleeping teammate.

            To use the word _sore_ would’ve been the biggest understatement in his life.

            After being rushed and pummeled by a charger on the second day of their journey he had responded to his teammates worry by stating it felt like he had been hit by a truck. Well, he was mentally taking it back because compared to that constant ache, the rolling in and out of pain, much like the waves earlier, was ten times crueler.

            He also realized that using waves to describe his pain also applied to the throbbing in his head. And if he wanted to keep adding things to his list of injustices at the moment he’d scribble down the complete blackness of the bunkroom which unsettled him and the violent rocking motion of the boat.

            He tried to press his face against Nick’s neck and shut it out by breathing in his scent. But as the ship lurched – or his body, he didn’t know which – he hopped up and as he ran out to the deck he hoped they hadn’t hit another storm.

            Luckily, they hadn’t. Not that he would’ve noticed it because he was already leaning over the side of the boat, his stomach heaving.

            He had no food in his stomach and the yellow bile burned as it spewed out his throat and left a bitter taste on his tongue. He retched again and again until nothing else, not even spit, came up. The bunk door shut behind him and he hurriedly wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

            Nick settled a blanket around his shoulders even though, out of the storm, the night air was very still and slightly warm. And Ellis realized that without whipping winds the boat was actually quite calm.

            “Didn’t take you for the seasick type.”

            “Never was afore,” Ellis admitted as he tightened the blanket around himself. “Used to go fishin’ all the time.”

            Nick sat beside him and sighed. “You’re probably so hungry you’re nauseous. Or pregnant. Been through that before; not a pleasant ordeal.”

            “She threw up?”

            But Nick was done talking about it. “Go lay back down, I’ll see what I can find.”

 

            Ellis must’ve dozed off again because he started forcefully when he felt a touch against his forehead.

            “Relax, kid!” Nick whispered it, but he was obviously just as startled as his junior. “I got you crackers and some water.”

            When Nick joined him on the bed he sat up and moved to press his back against the wall with the older man following suit. He felt the crackers against his arm. “Here.”

            “Wanna split ‘em?” Ellis held a cracker to his lips and turned his head for the answer.

            “No; I want you to eat.”

            “Okay.” The crackers were bland and hard in his mouth. If it weren’t for the aid of the water he figured he wouldn’t have been able to swallow them. “I hope I don’t puke these up, tastes horrible goin’ down.”

            “Don’t jinx yourself,” Nick mumbled.

            He bit off the corner of a cracker thoughtfully. “Think N’Orleans is gonna be overrun?”

            “Yes.”

            “Think it’s gonna be hard?”

            “Yes.”

            “I got yer back.”

            “Good to know,” he could hear the smile in his voice. There was a time when Nick would’ve just rolled his eyes at the corny statement. But Ellis meant it and maybe the gambler finally realized he meant most of the corny things he said.

            “Eat so we can sleep.”

            “You can sleep.”

            “Just _eat_.”

 

            He woke alone and groggy. The last time he ever woke this groggy was in high school. He blinked his eyes several times, realizing that the darkness in the room wasn’t just the back of his eyelids. He could barely make out the objects strewn about the room.

            He leaned over the bed and peered around for his clothes. When he couldn’t find them and ultimately resorted to start making a toga out of the blanket they plopped onto the floor from where they had been neatly folded at the corner of the bed.

            His pulled his shirt low as he walked out onto the deck where his teammates sat close and spoke in low voices. When Coach looked over the conversation stopped. He could barely make out their faces.

            “What’s up, guys?” His throat panged suddenly and he swallowed hard. But it was like trying to swallow a rock.

            “Whoa, sweetie.” Rochelle glanced at the other two men before she stood. “Are you feeling okay?”

            “I think so,” Ellis lied. _Really need to stop lyin’ to her._

            “Your shirt’s inside out, kid.” Nick walked to his side.

            “It is?” He looked down at his chest where the logo was not present. “Oh.”

            “Come back to the bunk.”

            “There’s no light in there.”

            “What’re you talkin’ ‘bout? We left the lights on for you.” Coach didn’t stand.

            “One-a ya’ll musta turned ‘em off, then,” Ellis responded. “’Cause it was dark, an’ I can see why. It’s dark out here, what time is it?”

            “It’s noon,” Rochelle replied.

            “Where’s the sun?”

            “Shining on your shoulders,” Coach whispered and his voice was sad. Ellis realized he never meant for the words to reach the younger southerner’s ears.

 

            Rochelle and Coach were talking inside the cabin. They weren’t whispering and so he could make out the hum of their voices through the wood.

            Nick’s hand distracted him as it settled on his forehead. “You’re hot.”

            “Thanks.”       

            “Don’t be a smart ass.” The hand moved to his cheek. “That rain didn’t do you any favors, huh?”

             Ellis leaned into Nick’s hands. “I’m cold.”

            “Yeah? Are you in pain?”

            “My ass hurts,” he smiled around the words.

            “Well, I _told_ you.” The old man drew him against the cabin to sit down. “What about anywhere else?”

            “Man, I’m just sore all over.” He pressed his head, displacing his hat, against where the blue dress shirt opened to the chest underneath. He breathed deep. _Diminished cologne and mint._ He breathed deep through his nostrils again. He liked mint.

            His stomach gurgled.

            “Hungry again?”

            “Ain’t we always? But we should probably save it, right?”

            “Or eat it since we’ll probably need everything we’ve got for New Orleans,” Nick responded, his fingers at the back of his lovers’ skull.

            “Wereyoulikethisferyerwife?” Ellis tried to slur the words together because he didn’t know why he needed to know.

            “What? When she was sick?” He laughed and his chest hummed with it. “She wanted nothing to do with me when she was sick.”

            “Well, yer bein’ niceta me.” Ellis slid his arms around Nick’s waist and squeezed. He put the tip of his nose in the dip above his collarbone and sniffed.

            The hand in his hair stiffened. “Are you _smelling_ me?”

            “Mhm.” He did it again.

            “Stop it.”

            “Why?” Ellis rolled his eyes up to the face above him.

            “Because I’m telling you to.”

            He ducked his head back down, feeling like a dog who was just smacked on the nose with the newspaper. The hand in his hair fell away but he kept his arms taught around the torso between them.

            Beyond Nick’s breathing Rochelle and Coach’s were clear. Clear and tense and solemn.

            “Nick said his shoulder was better.”

            “He’s been lyin’ to us since day one, sister.”

            “This isn’t about him. This is about Ellis.”

            “That’s what I’m sayin’. He’s been lyin’ta us. Or did you know about…” Coach trailed off and Ellis figured he was motioning something because Rochelle just sighed in response.

            “So,” she said after long moments of silence. “Nick lied about his bite.” There was more silence after she finished, accompanied in Ellis’ ear by Nick’s heartbeat.

            And then it was all interrupted by the loud smack of the bunk door shutting. Coach and Rochelle rounded the corner a moment later, slowing once they saw the couple. Ellis moved his head so he could pull his hat back down to hide his face.

            Nick’s hand settled on his lower back and circled reassuringly.

            “Honey,” he heard Rochelle sit, “can I see your shoulder?”

            “Nick checked it last night.” _Guess I’m just gonna keep addin’ to these lies._

            “I don’t think your health was the first thing on Nick’s mind last night,” Coach said, authority voice in tow.

            The chest below him inhaled with air and Ellis waited for the snarky comment to fly. Rochelle’s voice broke out first.

            “Coach.” She waited a beat and when she spoke again it was her sister-voice. “Ellis, we just want to check on you.”

            “I’m fine.”

            “You don’t sound fine. You don’t look fine.” Her hand was on good shoulder. “And everything you’ve told us makes me think you don’t feel fine.”

            Ellis nudged her hand away.

            “Nick,” she sighed.

            “What? If he says he’s okay, then he’s okay.” Nick’s fingers pressed into his back methodically with the massage.

            “That’s enough,” Coach’s voice was near booming. “Ellis. Stand up and show us your shoulder.”

            He looked up at his lover, pleadingly. After a moment of holding the look the older man cleared his throat and pressed his hand firmer. “Coach, I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong.”

            “Am I?”

            Nick pushed the boy in question aside to stand. “If you wanna talk about this then you and I can go in the bunk.”

            “There’s no more talking about this,” Coach crossed his arms.

            “He’s right, Nick.” Rochelle went to stand beside the eldest man, as if crossing some imaginary boundary line to show she was on his team.

            Nick’s brow furrowed. Ellis could almost feel the patience within him snap, like an overly taught rubber band that breaks and snaps back against the fingers that wouldn’t stop pulling it. It had taken this long for the northerner to talk to his teammates as if they actually mattered and only a few seconds for everything to snap back to those first awkward moments of necessity.

            “You’re both idiots. If he was gonna turn it would’ve happened already. You two _know_ that.”

            “I don’t know _shit_ , Nick,” Coach growled. “And neither do you. Especially about this virus and don’t you play like you do.”

            “What I _know_ ,” the gambler responded, tone just as threatening, “is that you’re an asshole.”

            “Nick,” Rochelle breathed out the name in annoyance and accompanied it with a roll of her eyes. “We don’t need to argue about this when we can just look at his shoulder and that will be that.”

            “I already looked, he’s fine.”

            “Then let _us_ look,” she wrung her hands together and the gesture matched the begging nature of her voice.

            Nick just crossed his arms and shifted his weight, his hips cocked as if daring them to step towards the boy.

            Ellis wanted to feel bad, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Nick. And he couldn’t stop feeling a surge of emotion in his chest over the protectiveness. He lifted his hat a little so he could take in the entire sight.

            Coach stepped close to the conman suddenly, closing the gap and leaving only a few inches between their faces. “You’ve been selfish since day one, Nick. Now I might not have no right making you tell us anything about you and I sure as hell know you’re only staying with us for one reason… But this _ain’t_ something you keep from the rest of us.”

            Unimpressed, Nick closed the gap further. “I’m selfish? Standing here talking about him like he hasn’t been fighting with us all this time isn’t selfish? You think you’re making him feel any better?”

            Coach didn’t respond and his shoulders relaxed but he didn’t back down.

            “You wanna fight? Then let’s fight, because so far you haven’t convinced me to let you strip him down and look him over like some kind of science project.”

            Their eldest member stepped back then and even Ellis could see that his face softened. He reached out and took Nick’s bicep, employing a new tactic and a softer tone. “I ain’t just thinking about Ro and me. I’m thinking about you and I’m thinking about him.”

            Nick’s brow slacked from anger to confusion.

            “What if it isn’t fine, Nicholas?” He was whispering now and he could tell only Nick was supposed to hear.

            But Ellis heard just fine. And that bothered him. So he twisted the hem of his shirt in his hands and bowed his head and pretended he couldn’t.

            “What if he is infected?” When Nick tried to pull his arm away Coach continued, hurried but just as hushed. “Listen to me. Do you want him to turn?”

            The adam’s apple in the neck he had been smelling earlier bobbed. Ellis watched it like it was a beer being dangled in front of his face. ‘Cause he could go for a cold one right then.

            “Do you want him to turn and attack us? Because I know, and _you_ know, he doesn’t want that.” And he let Nick go, hands up as if in surrender as he moved back.

            And Nick turned back, green eyes on Ellis who looked up as if sensing the gaze on him. He tried to smile but for the first time in his life it wouldn’t spread over his thick lips.

            “Take off your shirt, Overalls.”

            “Nick!”

            “Take it off.”

            “I’m fine! You said I woulda turned already and yer right! I woulda turned already!”

            “That’s what we’re going to prove.” Ellis stood with the help of the cabin as Nick approached. He stepped to the left, away from them.

            Rochelle and Coach moved in behind Nick. And Ellis knew they were just worried, he could see it on their faces, but right now they reminded him of nothing but the horde, beating and snarling and never backing away until they were blown and ripped to pieces.

            And so before he could stop it he swung his hand out. He wasn’t sure if he made a fist or not but from the way Nick’s head snapped to the side as it collided with his cheek Ellis knew it didn’t matter. When his head snapped back and those green eyes looked at him, wide and disbelieving and _hurt_ Ellis swung again before he remembered Nick was the last person in the world he ever wanted to hit.

            Luckily Nick had many, many experiences in fights and so saw the next punch coming long before Ellis even realized he was going to throw it. His arm missed and the gambler took advantage of the slight crouch he had moved into to ram his shoulder into the redneck’s stomach and the momentum sent them both back onto the deck of the ship.

            “I’m sorry!” Ellis blurted and thrashed his legs, catching Nick in the shin with his boot. He hadn’t _meant_ to and when he heard the inhaled, pained breath his chest began to pang. “I’m sorry!”

            Nick straddled his legs then, rendering them useless. Ellis reached up to push him off but Coach had moved to catch his wrists in mid-air before he slammed them to the wooden floor above his head. Rochelle moved forward hesitantly, lifted his shirt, and then peeled back the gauze.

            Ellis stopped struggling then and closed his eyes. But that didn’t help. He couldn’t see their reactions, but he could _sense_ them. He could smell the chocolate on Coach’s exhaled breath and he could hear the grief accompanying it. Rochelle had stepped back without a sound but he could smell salt. And Nick…

            Nick sighed and his weight settled back against Ellis’ thighs in a defeated slump.

            Ellis’ face was wet and he wondered when he’d started crying. When Coach released his hands he reached up to wipe the tears away. And when he opened his eyes he realized his fingers were red.

 

            Rochelle had stayed with him on the deck when Coach drew Nick up. Ellis had tried in vain to make eye contact with his lover but the green eyes never lifted. In fact his head never lifted and he walked with Coach to the bunk room slowly and silently.

            Their female member sat a few feet from him, her handgun next to her thigh. The southerner eyed it and wondered.

            “What now?” Nick’s voice was hollow and all but floated, limply on the air to Ellis’ ears.

            “What now?” A bed creaked as Coach settled on it as if screaming. “What we do now is…”

            “I don’t… He made it all the way with us. He made it this far…”

            “You ever see him get bit in all that time? Every monster in the world grabbed that boy and he wasn’t bit once.”

            “Til now.” They fell silent.

            “Ellis?” Rochelle had moved to his side. Her pistol was back in her holster.

            He looked at her from under his hat, making her the center of his vision because the visions had blurred to gray-blackness.

            “You okay?” She winced a little. “Okay, bad question. Um… Ellis, I’m so sorry.”

            “It’s okay.” Ellis whispered, voice throaty and scratched.

            She took his hand gently in her own and weaved their fingers together. He looked away then because her face was scrunched and it made her a lot less pretty. He didn’t want to see her that way.

            “How much longer do you think he has?” Nick’s voice hit his ears again.

            “Bit more than a day ago, he shoulda turned already. What do you think that means?”

            “Maybe he’s a carrier?” Nick’s voice was hopeful but Ellis just shook his head. Coach must’ve reacted the same way because when the conman continued his voice was strained and weak and Ellis’ hated it. “So you just want to _shoot_ him, don’t you?”

            “No. I don’t _want_ to, but what else can I do, Nick? There ain’t no cure and there ain’t no time.”

            “So what? Shoot him and dump him in the goddamn river, Coach?! Jesus Christ!” The leather shoes were pacing.

            “We let him decide that.”

            “Sure; ‘Ellis, how’d you like to be shot?’” Someone kicked something, hard. From the panted breaths that came after he knew it was Nick.

            “Would you rather shoot him when he remembers you, Nick, or when he’s forgotten and decides he’d rather kill you?”

            Ellis squeezed Rochelle’s hand and she drew him close. She didn’t smell as good as the gambler.

            “I get it, Coach.” He was tired again and Ellis wanted to curl up with him and sleep. “It just… it isn’t fair.”

            “What use is moaning about it now?”

            “But it isn’t,” Nick said, adamant. “It isn’t fair and it isn’t right that someone like Ellis isn’t immune. It isn’t right… that someone like _me_ is when he isn’t.”

            “That ain’t why it ain’t fair,” Ellis whispered, looking down at the ring on his hand, the gold glint still visible to his darkening eyes.

 

            “Ain’t scared of me turnin’ and takin’ a chunk outta you?” Ellis had his legs hugged to his chest. He didn’t really have the energy to keep his arms around them, but he didn’t want to open himself up in any sense. Even to Nick who sat at his side.

            He couldn’t see the other man because he was in his now-gone peripheral vision. All he could see from where he sat at the very back of the boat was the water and the reflection of the setting sun off the small waves.

            “No.”

            The southerner didn’t move. His eyes, now dark and black around the edges, like raccoon eyes, did however. It didn’t help; he’d have to turn his head. But that would be opening himself up and he just didn’t want that.

            “I’m sorry I hit ya.”

            “I know.”

            “You ain’t mad?”

            “No.”

            Ellis looked straight into the sun and held his gaze there. It didn’t hurt. “Why d’ya think I ain’t changed, yet?”

            “Because you’re young and strong.”

            He wanted to let the compliment sink. “You gonna shoot me?”

            “If you want me to,” Nick’s voice cracked. Ellis had only heard it crack when he was yelling for help and that was always caused by desperation.

            “I don’t know,” Ellis whispered. “Never thought of dying afore.”

            “I know you didn’t. You thought you were fucking invincible or something. Like you’d live forever.” His tone softened, “We all did.” His arm reached out then and circled around the boy’s broad shoulders.

            Ellis let his legs relax away, the movement and touch and sentiment making him forget that he was trying to hide. He pressed his face to Nick’s chest, letting his hat slip away as he settled his arms about the older man’s torso.

            “I don’t want to attack you,” he whispered and looked up. “But I know you don’t wanna shoot me. An’ I don’t blame ya, I don’t want you to have that…”

            “I’ll get over it, if you really don’t want to change.” But his eyes were clouded.

            “Wouldjya get over it?”

            Nick took in a slow, quivering breath and lifted his free hand to cup the redneck’s face. His thumb smoothed over the darkened skin beneath one blue-gray eye.

            “I’ll shoot myself,” Ellis said, determined. “I think God’ll forgive that.”

            The gambler snorted at the mention of the all-too-absent deity. Old habits die hard, Ellis figured, and they were only backed up by the flu running rampant with no end that anyone could see. But just as Nick couldn’t shrug off his doubt, the southerner couldn’t throw away twenty-three years of blind faith.

            “But Ikin still move,” he continued. “Ikin still help a little while longer. Coach probably won’t believe that, but I _can_.”

            “Fuck Coach.”

            “I love all you guys,” the redneck said. “But don’t let him shoot me.”

            “I won’t.”

            Silence fell and Ellis drew in a breath of that cologne and mint. “Think we woulda met if this all hadn’t happened?”

            “No,” Nick admitted.

            “Yeah.” The mechanic tightened his arm and repositioned his ear so it was on bare skin instead of having to feel the warmth through the blue dress shirt. “You probably woulda stuck to them casino boats an’ never visited my garage. An’ that’s all I usedta do.”

            “Probably.”

            “So, I guess I’m kinda glad. I mean, not fer it to end like this, but ‘cause I got to meet you guys. I mean, that was worth it, right? I got to know you guys better than anybody, maybe not yer pasts er nothin’ like where ya went to school but… I dunno. You understand what I mean?”

            “Yeah, I understand.” Nick took a deep breath and pressed his cheek against the top of his teammate’s head. And with an exhale and another inhale, a preparatory second, his voice spilled out quickly. “I was born near Chicago. I had a brother. He died when he was thirteen. I was sixteen when it happened and I ended up leaving home and school. My mother died two years after that but I didn’t go to her funeral. I’ve never even seen her grave. For all I know my father’s still living there. Or a zombie. I got caught up in gambling and counting cards because I was good at it. A gang noticed me and through them I met my ex wife. She got pregnant but kill our baby behind my back. I divorced her and stopped with any serious relationships. Working with the gang got me in trouble and I went to jail. Got out and nothing changed because there was nothing else for me. Came down here and that’s that.”

            Ellis had closed his eyes in the mini-rant because he really wanted to memorize it, to remember every detail until he was forced to forget. Because it was something special and he had a feeling he was the first person who had ever heard the full story.

            “Man, Nick,” his whispered, voice pained. “It’s probably better this way. I dunno how I ever woulda explained you to my mom.”

            A soft chuckle puffed against his head, displacing his hair for a split second. He inhaled so he could take Nick’s air in.

            “Why’d she kill your baby?” Ellis asked softly, pushing his luck because he figured bad luck had to be done with him by then.

            “Good question,” Nick’s voice was raw.

            “Didn’t mean to make you upset.”

            “Little late for that.”

            He had a feeling he didn’t mean his memories and Ellis tried to shove down his guilt, because it was a stupid thing to have right now. It was completely and utterly pointless because of all the emotions he could have in his final hours, he didn’t want and had no use for this one.

            So he attempted a joke. “At least we had sex again.”

            Nick’s chest began to bounce with his laughter and he actually put both his arms around the younger man and squeezed. His hands slipped from their hold then, up to his neck where his fingers remained and he used his thumbs to tilt Ellis’ chin up.

            But before he could touch their lips Ellis turned his head away. There was a beat and then the lips were against the cheek he had exposed to them instead. They traveled up his cheekbone, to the lobe of his ear, to the space behind it, and then down again across his jaw line to his neck.

            Ellis realized that he had leaned back and turned his head. But it didn’t feel right. It felt like it was supposed to be final. And it scared him.

            “Nick. Don’t. I’m not…”

            “Not what?” He withdrew suddenly and when Ellis looked his face was lined with anger and his eyes dark because they both knew what he’d meant to say. “Not _human_? I swear if you fucking…” He sighed and his arms dropped away.

            And Ellis felt the cold creep on him again so he wrapped his arms around himself and bowed his head. “I don’t wanna do it.”

            “Why? And if you say it’s because… I don’t know, because you’ll turn in the middle or because… _Why_?”

            “Because I don’t wantchyata remember the last time with me… lookin’ like this,” he spoke quietly so it was barely audible and hoped it wasn’t heard.

            Very slowly Nick drew the hillbilly’s face back towards him. He leaned his forehead against the boy’s. It must’ve made his view blurry but it was the only way he could actually make out every line of Nick’s face, and the individual hair of his stubble, and the red rims around his eyes.

            Ellis really liked Nick’s green eyes.

            He let the older man press their lips together again, languid and thorough and then he settled against his chest once again. And then he closed his eyes.

 

            When he opened them again everything was black. He remembered a time when he was a little bit sick, and truthfully hadn’t showered in a couple days, where he woke up to complete blackness because he couldn’t lift his eyelids. Somehow his eye junk had almost cemented the lids together.

            So Ellis lifted his hands and pressed his fingers to his eyelids and slowly pried them open. It felt like… he couldn’t describe it, it felt like scraping a rusty razor over the sensitive skin between his toes. It was the worst pain he’d ever felt and when he finally managed to get them open all he saw was a red haze.

            And then they started to sting. And it got worse, and then worse. He pressed his fists to his eye sockets and pressed in, hoping the pressure would help. But that made it worse and he yelped and threw his arms away, frustrated. But it was hurting and now shutting his eyes couldn’t reverse what he’d done. There was thick slow liquid traveling down his cheeks and he panicked.

            He sucked in a deep breath and then let the breaths come faster and faster, sucking them in through his teeth like it was somehow filtering it and making it pure enough to distill the pain in his head. But it did nothing and it hurt and the only thing he could do was keep trying to add pressure but it wasn’t helping because it was his eyeballs themselves and rubbing and poking and nothing could help him and theyhadtogo.

            Ellis screamed.

 

            By the time his teammates had rushed into the bunk room Ellis had gotten the source of his pain to stop. It was replaced in his head by a dull ache located in each of his eye sockets. But the stinging was gone and he held the evidence of that in his hands. And he could breathe normal.

            “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, Ellis!”

            “Oh my God!” Rochelle’s feet were getting farther away from the room.

            And he could smell chocolate and stomach acid and the retching sounds were so clear and loud in his ears.

            And then he was overwhelmed with cologne and mint because Nick was grabbing him, crushing him close and they were rocking.

            Ellis realized he’d done something wrong and he let the bloody organs in his palms fall so he could cling to Nick. “They was hurtin’.”

            “Jesus, Ellis. El, what did you do?” He sounded sad, so sad. He sounded heartbroken.

            “They was hurtin’!”

            A scratchy piece of cloth was wiping, none too gently, at his face, the area under his eyes, and then hesitantly at the now empty sockets. Ellis reached his hands up and felt along Nick’s chest, up his neck, and pressed his hands to the sides of his face. “I don’t mean-ta make you sad.”

            “Just _shut_ _up_.” A plea this time. Another, softer cloth was settled over the bridge of his nose, across where his eyes once had been, back to where it was then fastened behind his head. And then Nick’s hands dropped away but the smell was still strong and _good_ and close and he was warm under his hands.

            “Nick, I’m cold.”

            “I know,” he whispered softly. “But we made it. We’re here. We’ll get you to a safe room and… we’ll get a blanket.”

            “I can’t see,” Ellis voice cracked. “I can’t see.”

            “I know.”

            “Nick.” He felt lips on his forehead.

            “It’s okay. You’re still you, Ellis.” They crushed together and Ellis reached his hands up to press his fingers against Nick’s skull. But he couldn’t and when he felt he the wince in the older man’s cheek, pressed tight against his temple, he knew why. He knew, but he needed to feel it and so he pushed the tip of his forefinger against his thumb and he had to swallow again at the sharp, knife-like point that met his skin.

            A shotgun cocked across the room.

            And Nick pulled away from him so fast, and he’d been clinging so hard, that he almost lost his balance. He curled his hands in the blanket beneath him and his nails ripped the fabric.

            “Coach,” Nick’s voice threatened. “Put the goddamn gun down.”

            “Nick, he’s mutilating himself,” Coach sounded determined and justified and tired. “You want him to sit here, killin’ hisself?”

            There we several steps from both men and Ellis cowered back further into the bunk, head low and but cocked, forcing his ears to intake everything.

            “Nick, please,” Rochelle’s voice was weak and she could barely make through each word without sucking in a wet breath.

            “I told you,” Nick whispered. “I told you that I’d…”

            “But you ain’t!”

            “Don’t point that thing at him! Godammit, he’s sitting here _talking_ for Christ’s sake!” And then his voice became pure venom and Ellis cringed. “Stop pointing at him, Coach. I swear I’ll take you the fuck out.”

            His three teammates fell silent but their hearts raged and beat wildly in each of their chests. High on adrenaline and stress Nick’s heart was the loudest. Rochelle’s beat softer but rapidly, as if it had gone rampant in her small torso. Coach’s was fast and uneven and Ellis wondered if he’d have a heart attack before he could pull the trigger.

            He started when a swift gasp, like the ones runners take before starting their trip, broke the silence. There was a grunt and suddenly, loud and blasting, the shotgun went off. Somewhere above him the wood of the wall splintered. Instinctively he covered his head, but by that point if none of the pellets had hit him, none would.

            Coach and Nick grunted, almost in unison. There was a soft thud and Ellis could mentally see the large elbow connecting with the latter man’s stomach as it was his lover’s breath that accompanied the sharp intake of breath, and he remembered all the times he had seen Keith receive such a blow… more times than he could probably count.

            Their feet weren’t scuffing so the fight must’ve moved to the floor and if it had Nick was going to lose. He didn’t care how many dirty fights a gang member gets in, the facts were simple: Coach had at _least_ sixty pounds on his protector and he was a high school coach—a wrestling match against him was _not_ a good idea.

            From the sounds of it Nick was putting up a decent struggle though… or a stubborn one because the gun was shaking and the metal almost chiming and he knew the ringed fingers weren’t going to let go of it.

            The gun began to chatter harder. His ears didn’t know what that meant.

            There was a sick smack of knuckles on soft skin then and Nick hissed and spit and it smelled like blood.

            Ellis stood, missing the bunk-top as if he knew exactly where it was. And he made it to the men as if he knew exactly where they were. And he made it to the men in one stride and reached down to Coach’s shoulders, as if he knew exactly where he was. He dug his nails in and threw his arms and Coach _was_ heavy but he went, almost pliant, from his hands. The bunk frame clattered as his weight forced it back.

            He made to follow but stopped when his arm was caught in a cologne-mint grip.

            “Ellis.”

            “I ain’t changed yet,” Ellis said, face towards where he believed the bunk to be. Where he believed Coach to be. “I still know yer names an’ Ikin talk. I… I know ya’ll gotta kill me, but not on this boat, please. Not yet.”

            “We can take him until we can’t anymore,” Rochelle agreed, long moments later.

            Ellis pressed to Nick’s side and wrapped his fingers around the wrist of the hand holding the shotgun, careful of his nails.

            “We owe him that much.”

 

            The waves lapped and licked and were loud against the hull of Virgil’s boat as it pulled away from the dock. Ellis’ fingers were twisted into the material of Nick’s suit cuff and when one of them moved, the other went with.

            They fell into the positions he knew they were familiar with, except now they were without a point. Ellis wondered if they would travel in a hunched trio without him.

            He walked close to Nick, his boots scuffling up a ramp they were suddenly ascending. The sleeve in his fingers pulled forward and he followed it, obediently and then Nick used his other hand to dislodge his fingers and instead put his arm around Ellis’ lower back.

            “Stick close.”

            “It smells bad here,” he whispered in response. He reached down to take Nick’s jacket in his hand, one of the buttons pressing in his hand, because he needed to hold onto him in some sense without getting in the way. From the feeling of Nick’s arm around him he knew that the stance its owner had taken left him vulnerable and open and he… infected and dying, protected.

            “Stay together.” Coach’s voice and shotgun blast filled the air. Rochelle’s machine gun followed and then Nick’s. It continued on for several moments interspaced with the few sickening cracks of bone crushing as the metal of the guns connected with the faces of their attackers.

            As soon as it quieted they moved again. Nobody spoke and Ellis knew it was because of him, in more than one way. Sure, maybe because they were depressed over him but because usually he’d never stopped talking long enough to let any of them join in for more than five minutes. So maybe they were just used to not conversing but he wondered if they welcomed the silence.

            Their guns broke out again but it must have only been at a few targets because their feet didn’t pause during the action. Nick moved him along a little quicker and when they stopped his hands were taken and pressed against something cold and metal and smelling of gasoline.

            “Wait for a sec,” the gambler murmured and stepped away. Ellis listened as a machine gun-shotgun duet broke out over the air.

            “I’m with you, Ellis,” Rochelle said behind him. “Don’t worry.”

            But he hadn’t been worried, he hadn’t even been thinking about how dangerous it was for him to stand alone. Not that there was ever a point where he thought he was alone; he could smell her standing barely two feet from him.

            He didn’t answer her and instead only lifted his head once he smelled Nick coming back. He stepped away from the vehicle and reached his hands out to be taken again. The older man took one of them and they fell back into position against each other.

            “I smell booze,” Ellis announced. His shoulder bumped against a doorway as he was lead into a building so he moved closer to Nick, figuring he was too far. He realized a moment later that the doorway had just been small and the room must’ve been equally small and very cluttered because his foot connected with debris. Nick held on tight and didn’t let him fall.

            “Careful, there’s chairs all over…We’re in a bar.”

            He stumbled once more before his hands were drawn to rest on very smooth wood. He traced his hands over the side up to where it curved and then he stepped, away from the immediate heat of Nick’s body, to run his hands over its face. And when his fingers slipped across glass and came to rest on lined buttons he smiled. A jukebox.

            Glass bottles were knocking together somewhere to his left.

            Nick’s hand came up to his shoulders and squeezed the muscle gently. “They have the Midnight Riders.”

            Ellis smiled a little. “Can you play it?”

            “No,” Coach answered immediately. “…We don’t want anything running up on us that don’t have to.”

            “Yeah,” he whispered. “Forgot.”

            “Here.” Their eldest member sounded apologetic. A bottle touched the back of his hand and then Ellis wrapped his fingers around it and brought it close.

            Nick reached around and pulled the top off for him and then his arm was back around his waist. The redneck lifted the bottle to his face, jutting his nose a little, and, after waiting for Nick to tease him over it, took a sniff.

            “Gin?”

            “Drink up,” Nick encouraged. “And save me some.”

            Ellis took a swig as they walked and wrinkled his nose as the sharp and fizzed taste within his mouth. Somehow it seemed worse this time than the last time he’d drank it. He held it up a little for Nick.

            But Nick didn’t take it, instead his gun broke out again, but they kept moving and moving. Step, step, the whirling whiz of the bullets from his weapon, step, step. When his feet were on softer ground, grass he realized, he slowed.

            “Are we in someone’s yard?” But then his feet were on concrete and then on tiled floor. He sniffed the air. “Smells like burgers and dead people.”

            “My favorite combination,” Nick said, sarcastic tone thick.

            Coach’s shotgun rang out and echoed in the small room and it was like it was reverberating off something because the sound was so loud it was painful. Ellis let go of Nick’s jacket to press one hand, and the alcohol bottle, to his ears.

            Nick’s fingers squeezed into his back, trying to reassure him but it didn’t work this time. Ellis grit his teeth and tried to grunt the sound away, but his voice grounded out long and low in a growl.

            “Almost there, El,” his lover murmured, misconstruing the sound but Ellis didn’t correct him; he just shoved the mouth of the bottle into his own and sucked.

            Fresher air blew on his face and the sounds stopped echoing and screaming in his ears and he knew they must’ve been outside again.

            An un-dead screamed filled the air a second later, however and the sound could’ve ripped his ear drums in half for all he knew at the extensive pain. Nick disappeared from his side with a yank and Ellis threw his arms out helplessly.

            “Nick!”

            “Horde!”

            “Coach, a Smoker’s got Nick!” Ellis pointed in the direction from which he could hear the slick suit sliding against rough concrete.

            But Rochelle and Coach’s guns were busy and their attentions on themselves and Ellis could hear the horde slipping around them because they saw and heard Nick just as the redneck heard Nick: weakened and alone.

            And they ran past Ellis without so much as a touch, directly for the restrained man.

            Ellis ran and threw out his hands and he felt his nails cut deep and felt thick blobs of blood hitting his face and hands and chest. Nick was gagging and his heels were scuffing against the street.

            He threw his arm again, hand rigid, and his nails caught something slimy. He could feel drops of blood on his hand as it tore and then snapped back and away.

            Nick gasped in a long-overdue breath.

            A few gunshots buzzed past Ellis from a pistol and then he crumpled to his knees and reached out, gripping at Nick. “Yer okay?”

            The gambler cleared his throat and coughed. “I was… Until I saw that you dropped the gin.” He took a deep breath then and settled into silence. After a few moments he touched Ellis’ cheek. “There’s a safe room up ahead, kid. You still cold?”

            Ellis nodded and put his hand over Nick’s. “…Legs are sore, too.”

            “…Well… we’ll get you a blanket and you can get on my back.”

            The hillbilly smiled and turned his head to kiss the warm palm. “Nah, Nick.”

            “What?”

            “You saw me, I know ya did. I was… rippin’ those things apart with my _hands_ , Nick… an’ I ran over like I could still see an’—…”

            Nick put his hand over Ellis’ mouth so hard it hurt his lips. Slowly it moved down to his neck and the younger man sighed, almost pleased, as the thumb smoothed over his throat in a circle. “What if they have a cure? Did you think of that?”

            “Nick… they don’t, an’ I ain’t gonna make it to that bridge.”

            “Would you stop saying my name?”

            “No, ‘cause I won’t get ta say it anymore.”

            Coach and Rochelle were running to them so Nick’s hand moved to his arm and they stood together.

            “You two okay?” Rochelle asked.

            “…Stupid question,” Nick bit out but his voice was too soft to back it up.

            “Let’s get to that safe room, afore more come,” Coach said and began to walk down the street. Slowly, very slowly, Nick followed and Ellis held onto his jacket as tightly as he could. And when the door shut behind him everything came together, his emotions and the realization of everything he was losing and it wasn’t fair because he just got it. It wasn’t fair because there should’ve been more to this. There should’ve been more days where he could feel the way he felt with Nick. He slumped down to his knees and wished he could still cry.


	3. Chapter 3

After Nick had lead him up narrow stairs and wedged the door at the top open Ellis had been settled down onto a bed that was surprisingly soft. He sat there as his lover shut the door and then as he paced around the room. He never walked too far away and that meant that Nick had chosen a particularly small room.

The bed sunk down next to him and Ellis leaned towards it and stopped when their arms touched. He took Nick’s hand.

“…I can stay with you,” Nick whispered. “Until you turn. We can wait.”

“No, you don’t have alotta time to make it to the bridge,” Ellis replied. He drew the other man’s arm up and then around himself before moving closer to rest his cheek against his collarbone.

There was a knock on the door but neither man moved. It creaked a prolong creak as the door was slowly opened. He could smell Coach and Rochelle through the doorway.

“Can we come in?” their female member asked, voice low and solemn.

“Yeah,” Ellis said.

She walked to him and then her small hand was on his shoulder and he reached up to cover it. There was the smell of salt again. She sucked in that same wet breath he heard earlier. “I’m gonna miss you, sweetie.”

He tried to smile at her. “Yeah, Ro. I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. …It’s our fault.” Her lips touched his hand and then she moved away.

“Not anybody’s,” Ellis whispered, though he knew if he had to blame anyone he’d always pick himself.

“You want us to stay… a little longer?” Coach asked.

“No.” He held out his hand and after a moment the larger man took it firmly and squeezed. “I wanchya guys to get goin’ so you make it.”

Coach’s grip squeezed again and then was gone. “I’m sorry this had to happen to you, boy.”

“Better me than any-a you,” Ellis replied immediately, without thinking twice.

“No,” the deep voice shook. “No, it’s ain’t better.” He stepped forward again and he felt Nick shift and heard the slight pat of metal against skin. The gun Nick was going to use.

“Do you want us to…?”

“Just Nick. Please. Just Nick.”

“Alright.” There was a beat. “Thanks, Ellis.”

“Thank you, Ellis,” Rochelle repeated. “Love you.” And her footsteps followed Coach out of the room and down the stairs.

Ellis turned his head back to Nick’s chest. It was rising and falling unsteadily and his heartbeat was erratic.

“Nick,” he whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Remember when we ran on that roller coaster?”

“Yes, Ellis. I remember.”

“An’ the concert?”

“Yes.”

“Third best night of my life,” he murmured, smiling.

Nick didn’t ask what the first two were, but they both knew.

“Nick… Can you do me a favor?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you write a note on the wall downstairs for Keith? Just in case. I know he’s probably dead but…”

“I’ll write it. What do you want me to write?”

Ellis was silent a moment. “Tell ‘im that I drove Jimmy Gibbs’ stock car. And ran on the Screamin’ Oak. And rocked out to the Midnight Riders. An’ survived a helicopter crash. An’ a hurricane. An’ tell him about you.”

“Why me?”

“Because I was gonna tell him when I found him again anyway.”

“Okay, Overalls.”

There were gunshots below them and then they stopped. Rochelle and Coach’s voices shot back and forth. The infected knew they were there.

“Nick.”

Nick took his face, fierce and sudden, and pushed their lips together. And Ellis put as much emotion he could into it without breaking down. He wrapped his arms around the other man and tried to make it go on forever. And they would have if more screams from outside didn’t stop them. And though they were handled just like the others and it was quiet again the redneck knew it was time for Nick to go.

He leaned back and smiled a little. “I’ll do it.”

“No,” Nick whispered. The gun cocked and then Ellis’ hat was removed. And soft lips pressed against his forehead and then he was gone and the younger man was alone on the bed.

“What are you going to do after all of this, Nick?” Ellis asked because he had to know.

“I don’t know anymore,” Nick answered, honest and raw. “But you would’ve come with me.”

The southerner nodded his head twice and then bowed it. “I wish I could’ve.”

“Me too,” his lover whispered. “Me too…Good night, Ellis.”

“G’night,” he whispered. And then an explosive pain took over his head and everything stopped.

 

It smelled something. It smelled like salt and sweat and distinctly female, but above all of this it smelled like cinnamon. Of course, its mind didn’t know the names of the smell, nor could it remember when it had ever smelled them before, but it had smelled them and it knew what smells like those belonged to. And above all, it knew that those smells were good.

But the sounds were something entirely different. They were constant and screeching and so very loud. And right now those sounds were ruining the good smells.

The creature stood and turned its eyeless face towards where the sounds derived. They were muffled and judging from its own growl, which it ground out, that meant it was being obstructed by something.

It moved forward and when it met something hard it shrieked and threw its arms as hard as it could. The obstruction broke outwards and it immediately jumped out the newly formed opening, landing at the same time as the debris it created.

The crouched position it landed in felt better, natural, strong and so it began to crawl. As its legs and arms worked together the monster sucked in a long sniff and it smelled the cinnamon, just barely. It gave a roaring, echoing shriek and waited.

Its wait wasn’t long. The sounds were convoluting the smell again and it was frustrating and it knew exactly where they were coming from and it lunged. And it lunged high. Its feet and hands connecting with roof tiles and it crawled across, low, nostrils flaring and head cocked.

The sound was high and whined. And sometimes it broke down and then jerked up again before it was forcefully hushed and muffled. But the smell was so strong now. It was right below the creature, walking right below.

And with the sound muffled all it wanted to do was get closer. So it lunged.

But the cinnamon owner screamed and screamed and then it was running and those steps were so pounding and its screams drew more screams of those just like him and then there was the crack!crack!crack! and the monster screeched and tried to cover its ears. But the screams were all around now and they weren’t stopping and then it was just angry.

And so it jumped, high, and when it landed the cinnamon female was beneath him. She had gone with a loud grunt and a force of wind directly on the monster’s face. And when she sucked back in she didn’t scream. The sounds were incessant and loud and it was something familiar, not the screaming or the crying, but something familiar… begging.

The word angered the creature. It didn’t know what it was or what it meant or even that it could mean anything.

But it did know the only way to stop the sounds and the screams and everything. It threw out its arms and ripped the girl apart.

And when it was done and the world silent, displaced by the soft shambling of confused, unimportant feet, it realized that the cinnamon was gone. And, with gore wet and thick and slimy on its skin, it realized that the smell of blood was more delicious than the girl’s smell ever could be.

 

In its travels the creature realized several things that it profoundly understood. The first of these is that only a certain type of blood, the sort he’d ripped from the cinnamon female, smelled good. And even after a while that would end as well.

Blood did not smell good from the countless of others aimlessly shuffling and groaning. They were obstacles and rivals. They liked the good smells too maybe because they weren’t composed of them.

The creature had attacked two, two that had been screaming and slapping. Their blood was thick and putrid. And so he had lunged up, high, to separate himself. And they couldn’t follow. And the creature realized another thing then.

It was different.

But, there were other differents like the creature. It had heard the others and knew them by sound. And it stayed away from them. Although it was sure, just like the weak ones, these would not bother him, there was something… for some reason the creature felt it best to stay away and so it did.

It stayed to the quiet areas where the weak ones walked in smaller numbers. And it was in one of these that, crawling and sniffing he came upon a new scent.

It was in the open and the creature stayed back for long moments, sniffing the air in a fierce suck. After long moments it shrieked. But there was only silence and so, unafraid, it lunged down and landed atop the smell.

And when it shoved its face down against the smell it was hard and cold, but made no sound. It was small and the creature swiped its hand along it which sent it spiraling away, scratching and clattering until it stopped.

The creature followed and sniffed. It made no sound.

And it smelled better than the cinnamon.

And it smelled better than the blood.

To its nose it was cologne and mint and it sent something familiar through its chest. But in its mind it was another good smell. Another good smell and a target.

 

Traces of its target were left, as if in a trail. Surrounding the traces were the smells of sweat and blood. Dead blood. Blood that didn’t interest the creature and so he moved on, from source to source.

 

Pain racked the creature’s body and it shrieked even as it hopped and lunged and jumped towards it. It was blaring and repetitive and the infected jumper just wanted it to stop. When it finally did the creature stopped atop a building and listened.

Several of the weak ones were screaming and running and combined with their sounds the continued sudden bursts of noise from something… something it knew was dangerous was screaming in its ears and through its skull.

So it waited back and sniffed the air. And its claws gripped, its legs thrummed, and its growl grew because the smell of cologne and mint was thick. And it wanted more of it.

Voices broke out but the monster didn’t recognize them as such. They were loud and hostile.

Above them one sounded, louder. And it wasn’t horrible, it was familiar. And again, it couldn’t remember and again it grew enraged.

Before it could lunge there was a sudden, more incessant noise. It chattered and pitched high and low, repeatedly, annoyingly.

It lunged then and when its shoulder touched the corner of a building away from the shouting voices and it rounded the side and then feeling a slight opening crawled backwards into it. And it waited until the laughter escalated and with it so too did the familiar voice.

It could smell the cologne and mint moving closer, running closer. It could smell sweat and blood and mint and cologne and something putrid that shouldn’t have been mixed in.

One of the differents had its target.

It growled and as soon as the duo rounded the corner it snapped its arms out and dug its nails deep and ripped the different back into the building and out of sight.

Its target didn’t wait and soon its voice was farther away and soon all the voices were and then there was no more screaming, or gunshots, or talking. There was only the slight smell of cologne and mint on this differents’ body.

And it angered the jumper so it ripped and slashed until there was nothing but slick wetness between its claws.

 

Every weak one or different the creature came upon that held the slightest twinge of that smell it ripped apart. Because they had been after his target and even though the special infected couldn’t understand why it angered it so…

White. Green.

The flashes didn’t make sense to the warped mind. They were there and with them something else but the monster didn’t know what to make of them or how to make anything of them. All it felt was anger. Anger because it didn’t know what memories were, let alone that it was having them.

Finding its target had taken far too long with the flashes that wouldn’t stop and the several infected and the several places the cologne-mint body had paused for even a moment.

The smell didn’t end when the creature stopped. The trail continued onwards but where it led was loud and smelled horrid. It smelled like gasoline and dirty river water, things it could have labeled before. All it knew now was that those smells meant danger.

But the weak ones were screaming and some different were roaring and it knew it was because they were after its target too. Because they liked the smell too. And it had to get to him before they did.

It traveled along the beams of the bridge, lunging from one to the next above the chaos below. Underneath gunshots rang, infected screamed, and heartbeats raced.

There was a bellowing cry, firm and earth shattering. The monster knew this was the different it had been avoiding, just like the three living had probably been. The different grunted and yelled and its skin split as gunshots rang and bullets pierced its body.

Its target was yelling, ordering, and running. It was far behind the other two runners.

And when that different fell the jumper lunged again and again. Closer and closer.

It knew the bridge was ending without knowing what a bridge or end was.

It could hear only two heartbeats clearly now, the third having moved further off where there were so many sounds the creature couldn’t discern between them. One heartbeat was steady and strong, the other loud and erratic. The latter was waiting for the first, waiting for its target. It was in the way.

And so it lunged onto the weak heartbeat.

There was a yell—but it wasn’t like the cinnamon female’s yell. It was male and deep and familiar and disbelieving. The tone halted its claw for a split second, but only for that long. And then the jumper tore its nails across the meaty covering of that heartbeat.

There was a jutting pain against its face and the creature jerked backwards but it caught its bearings and ducked its body into a roll that settled it onto its haunches. Its attacker was no more than two feet away. And it smelled like sweat and cologne and mint and its breath was fast and like laughter and mocking and gravelly-low in the dark of night.

And all of this hurt the creature’s chest and it didn’t know why. And it all had to stop.

The Hunter crouched low and pounced.

 

Nick hadn’t been able to shoot Ellis.

He’d shot men before. He’d shot them before the apocalypse. And all throughout said apocalypse he had no qualms about exploding heads and flying body parts and excessive blood. He had no issue with killing to stay alive.

But he hadn’t shot the redneck.

He had put the boy to sleep with a swift, sick crack of the gun’s butt against the front of his skull. And that enough had twisted something in the conman’s chest as he had no choice but to watch his former lover jerk back onto the bed, bounce once, and then remain still.

Nick had kissed the plump, dry lips and then the ring on the pale, long-nailed finger before leaving.

Downstairs, after barricading the bedroom door behind him, the green eyes didn’t lift. Wordlessly he had held the shotgun to Coach’s larger hands before scrounging the room for provisions. He had kept his head low eyes hard because if they softened for even one moment he knew they’d glass over.

Before the trio left the safe room Rochelle squeezed his hand and Coach his shoulder. But neither helped and he shrugged them both away.

“You had to do it,” the now-solitary-southerner informed him. “He’d thank you for doing it.”

“Coach,” Nick had responded. “I don’t want to hear any bullshit from you. I don’t want to hear any words of sympathy from you. I don’t want you trying to make me feel any better. Nothing will ever make me feel better. Nothing will ever make that go away. So keep your God-loving, bible-humping attitude to yourself.” And he walked out into the street and promptly killed every infected in sight.

 

Besides screaming at the other two for help or that he was coming to help or their next tactic Nick made no other comments. His snide remarks were gone just like any relationship he’d formed with his teammates. As far as he was concerned you couldn’t put pieces of paper together and hope they’d stick without glue.

This choice had proved often enough to be a bad one. Several times he was cut off from his companions by the horde or by a tongue or by green, acid-spit.

This time, as they all scrambled to shut off the screaming alarm on the tower, Nick’s had almost cost him.

A jockey had leaped onto his head and its dull fingers were on his forehead and its skinny thighs gripped his head and it pulled and laughed and smelled.

While the alarm had stopped none of the screaming–his teammates nor the infected—had stopped and so his voice was covered and muffled. And his body was succumbed to the embarrassing ride of the mutated creature.

And suddenly he was free and spinning. He lost his balance from the sudden freedom of unwanted weight and stumbled to his knees. He looked back once, into the dark building behind him. And he heard growling.

Nick didn’t wait around. He lifted his gun and ran and even though he was limping he didn’t look back. He wasn’t about to leave himself open ever again.

In any sense of the word.

 

The bridge lowered in front of the conman’s dirtied shoes. To the right the helicopter waited, far off and small. To his left were his companions. And behind him…

Rochelle took his hand suddenly. “Love you, Nick. In case we don’t make it through this.”

“We’re gonna.”

Her hand fell away and she turned to Coach to repeat the sentiment. It was returned this time and it seemed to give her confidence and maybe some strength because she moved from one booted foot to the next.

And that was all fine and dandy. She could borrow Coach’s strength to get across because Nick had none to spare. His had all been siphoned away much earlier. He’d been running on fumes since that safe room and now the last of those fumes were going to get him across this bridge. And then he was going to get on the helicopter and sleep.

Like Ellis was sleeping.

Nick reached into his suit jacket pocket and his fingers settled on the brim of a hat. He squeezed it gently.

A part of him hoped the boy would never wake up. A part of him hoped he’d kill him unknowingly. But somehow he knew it wasn’t true and that hurt even more than watching the skull explode would’ve.

It hurt to think he’d left him, trapped in that small room where he’d eventually starve, slowly and painfully.

But the bridge clattered down and suddenly the only thoughts he had were the streaming pile of infected running for them as they started on their sprint.

It was all a blur of red and pale, deformed faces. He was shooting and reloading, shooting and reloading, remaining close to the other two survivors. There were screams and tongues and spit and giant fists and they all amounted to nothing.

Nothing was going to stop them now. Nothing could.

They’d lost too much at that point. He’d lost too much at that point. And if he didn’t make it… Jesus Christ, he could see the disappointment on the kid’s face.

The tank slowed them all. But it slowed Nick in particular and he wondered if it was some sort of punishment. It slapped a car into his path and the conman barely ducked out of the way as it whirred past him. He looked around his salvation, the end of a truck, at where the tank roared and threw its arms about.

Coach and Rochelle had made it past the behemoth. They were shooting backwards for him but their feet were still moving. They were leaving.

Nick didn’t blame them.

He back-pedaled and fired, reloaded and fired again. His held his finger down on the trigger until the gun clicked silent, never to be refilled because Nick had no more ammo. And miraculously the Tank fell dead at his feet.

He heaved a heavy, relieved breath and ran. He shoved his arms around at anything that reached for him and somehow it worked. Somehow he made it through. Somehow nothing had gotten him.

He slipped off the end of a bus and looked up at where Coach was waiting for him.

It almost made him regret his angry words from earlier.

Almost.

Nick ran to him, hand clenched over his assault rifle because it was habit and because he felt like he’d shake to pieces if he didn’t have something to grip. They fell in step together, heading for the open area of fence, heading for the drop below, and then finally the helicopter where their female teammate awaited them.

There was a grunt next to him and a sudden force. It sent Nick tripping and reeling to his side, almost to his knees until he caught himself at the last moment.

“No! Not--!”

He spun just in time to see a spray of blood practically float through the air off Coach’s chest.

Off the Hunter’s claws.

Off Ellis’ nails.

He lost any words, any breath, any thought because the boy was there, head still wound with the ripped cotton sheet once white, now red. Because the hillbilly looked just as he had when he’d forced him into slumber. Because the redneck had just slashed at his fellow southerner’s chest. Because the young man was poised to do it again.

Because his lover had found them.

And it was his sentiment, his pain, his… all of it was his fault.

He screamed Ellis’ name, running over, and rammed the butt of his gun into the now distorted face of their former teammate.

The body Nick had learned so well rolled off and in one fluid motion the infected mechanic was on his haunches, head fixed in the gambler’s direction.

“Ellis.”

Ellis screeched in response and lunged. And Nick went down hard. The impact forced all the breath from his body and sent his mind spinning. His gun clattered behind him and he was open and vulnerable. Just like he’d always been with the boy.

Coach was yelling somewhere beyond his feet. But the older man’s firearm had also been knocked from his hands. And now the infected were catching up to them. And they chose the closest option.

There was several loud sniffs above him and he felt and smelled the decayed, bitter breath on his face, so different from the sweet smell his lover had possessed and shared in their heated kisses and exchanges.

“Ellis!”

The formerly youthful, handsome face twisted. His brow knitted and his nose crinkled in a grimace and he cried out again in the northerner’s face as if angered.

Nick wondered where the heavy accent had gone.

The first claw ripped into his side and the nails pulled. It wasn’t deep but it was enough. Nick screamed. And Ellis screamed in response and dug his other claw in and ripped. And this time it was deep and it was bloody and it was the worst pain Nick had ever felt because it wasn’t just physical.

Nick turned his head to the side and continued yelling. “ELLIS! ELLIS, PLEASE!” And dammit, he knew it wasn’t worth the waste of his breath. It wasn’t worth the scratching on his throat. It wasn’t worth the waste of energy because the thing on him wasn’t his Ellis anymore.

He’d lost the boy before he had even realized he’d wanted to keep him.

He’d lost the stupid accent.

He’d lost the stupid laughter.

He’d lost the stupid stories.

He’d lost the boy’s devotion.

He’d lost inexperienced kisses and hopeful blue eyes.

The only thing he had left to lose was his life. And he didn’t intend to lose it. He hadn’t come that far to die. He hadn’t come that far to go back on his promise to the redneck.

And somehow he was sure Overalls could see and was pleased.

Coach’s shotgun was within reach. Nick devoted one of his flailing arms that had been keeping the once-loving now-vicious hands at bay to retrieving it. The action left him open and vulnerable again. Open and vulnerable for the last time.

Ellis’ nails sunk into his flanks and remained there. The bloodied face moved close and the once appealing lips opened to reveal sharp, red teeth. The nostrils flared and his infected mechanic sucked in through them deep and released the breath slowly, so slowly for a man who’d lost his mind.

But it was lost.

So Nick swung the shotgun up and pressed the nozzle to the bottom of the boy’s chin.

 

“Ellis.” And he squeezed the trigger.

The sound was devastating and Nick didn’t open his eyes until the blood and skull and brain matter stopped raining down on his face.

And then Coach reached down for him and drew him up. And they shuffled together to where Rochelle was waiting. To rescue.


End file.
